CORDA CONCORDIA
From what our fate inurns—
Save that which music yearns
To speak, in ecstasy none understand,
And (Oh, how like to it!)
The half-formed rays that flit,
Like memories vague, above the further land—
Cry, as the star-led Magi cried,
We seek, we seek, we will not be denied!
Let the blind throng await
A healer at the gate;
Our hearts press on to see what yonder lies,
Knowing that arch on arch
Shall loom across the march
And over portals gained new strongholds rise.
The search itself a glory brings,
Though foiled so oft, that seeks the soul of things.
Some brave discovery,
Howbeit in vain we try
To clutch the shape that lures us evermore,
It shall be ours to make,—
As, where the waters break
Upon the margin of a pathless shore,
They find, who sought for gold alone,
The sudden wonders of a clime unknown.
112
