"The rest is silence."—Hamlet.
I.
The message of the god I seek
In voice, in vision, or in dream,—
Alike on frosty Dorian peak,
Or by the slow Arcadian stream:
Where'er the oracle is heard,
I bow the head and bend the knee;
In dream, in vision, or in word,
The sacred secret reaches me.
II.
Athwart the dim Trophonian caves,
Bat-like, the gloomy whisper flew;
The lisping plash of Paphian waves
Bathed every pulse in fiery dew:
From Phœbus, on his cloven hill,
A shaft of beauty pierced the air,
And oaks of gray Dodona still
Betrayed the Thunderer's presence there.
III.
The warmth of love, the grace of art,
The joys that breath and blood express,
The desperate forays of the heart
Into an unknown wilderness,—
All these I know: but sterner needs
Demand the knowledge which must dower
The life that on achievement feeds,
The grand activity of power.
IV.
What each reveals the shadow throw
Of something unrevealed behind;
The Secret's lips forever close
To mock the secret undivined:
Thence late I come, in weary dreams
The son of Isis to implore,
Whose temple-front of granite gleams
Across the Desert's yellow floor.
V.