Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/59

This blaze of stars, this infinite fair world,
The express will of God, the mould of law,
Passion welled in me, and hope wonderful
As heaven's leading to its own elect,
To know, to know, to know, only to know!
And knowledge came to me that comes to all
Ere manly years." Again he found the world,
And seemed as one who masters in himself
Pity for others and his own despair.
Then by that sudden sympathy compelled,
They drew, together, o'er the softened pine:
"Yes, knowledge comes; and joy it is at first
To be the confidant of Nature's heart,
To steal her memory, live her ages o'er;
Nor less than god-like shall he seem whose eye
Through Time's dark telescope doth stand at gaze
With light's first motions in the silenced prime;
He ranges the abyss, and home returns,
Nor from his instant moves,—without amaze,
Eternity shrunk to an hour of thought.
Hast thou not seen it, as 't were yester morn
And o'er thy father's fields that light went forth?
The kindle of the unforeseeing deep,
The sparkle of the multitudinous fire,
The glow and gather of the isles of flame,