The Pilgrim
Youth’s gay springtime scarcely knowing
Went I forth the world to roam
And the dance of youth, the glowing,
Left I in my father’s home,
Of my birthright, glad-believing,
Of my world-gear took I none,
Careless as an infant, cleaving
To my pilgrim staff alone.
For I placed my mighty hope in
Dim and holy words of faith,
“Wander forth the way is open,
Ever on the upward path
Till thou gain the golden portal,
Till its gates unclose to thee.
There the earthly and the mortal,
Deathless and divine shall be!”
Night on morning stole, on stealeth,
Never, never stand I still,
And the future yet concealeth,
What I seek, and what I will!
Mount on mount arose before me,
Torrents hemmed me every side,
But I built a bridge that bore me
O’er the roaring tempest-tide.
Towards the east I reached a river,
On its shores I did not rest;
Faith from danger can deliver,
And I trusted to its breast.
Drifted in the whirling motion,
Seas themselves around me roll
Wide and wider spreads the ocean,
Far and farther flies the goal.
While I live is never given
Bridge or wave the goal to near
Earth will never meet the heaven,
Never can the there be here!
Related poetry:
- Sorrow SORROW, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow. One thought lies close in her heart gnawn thorough With pain, a weed in a dried-up river, A rust-red share in an empty furrow. Hearts that strain at her chain would sever The […]...
- The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point I. I stand on the mark beside the shore Of the first white pilgrim’s bended knee, Where exile turned to ancestor, And God was thanked for liberty. I have run through the night, my skin is as dark, I bend my knee down on this mark. . . I look on the sky and the […]...
- The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods, against a stormy sky, Their giant branches tost; And the heavy night hung dark The hills and water o’er, When a band of exiles moored their bark On the wild New England shore. Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, […]...
- The Pilgrim I fasted for some forty days on bread and buttermilk, For passing round the bottle with girls in rags or silk, In country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray, And what’s the good of women, for all that they can say Is fol de rol de rolly O. Round Lough Derg’s holy […]...
- The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay! With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array And your central girders, which seem to the eye To be almost towering to the sky. The greatest wonder of the day, And a great beautification to the River Tay, Most beautiful to be seen, Near by Dundee […]...
- Ring Out Your Bells Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread; For Love is dead All love is dead, infected With plague of deep disdain; Worth, as nought worth, rejected, And Faith fair scorn doth gain. From so ungrateful fancy, From such a female franzy, From them that use men thus, Good Lord, deliver us! Weep, neighbours, […]...
- The Hayloft Through all the pleasant meadow-side The grass grew shoulder-high, Till the shining scythes went far and wide And cut it down to dry. Those green and sweetly smelling crops They led the waggons home; And they piled them here in mountain tops For mountaineers to roam. Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail, Mount Eagle and […]...
- Florentine Pilgrim “I’ll do the old dump in a day,” He told me in his brittle way. “Two more, I guess, I’ll give to Rome Before I hit the trail for home; But while I’m there I kindo’ hope To have an audience with the Pope.” We stood upon the terraced height With sunny Florence in our […]...
- Faith is the Pierless Bridge Faith is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not Too slender for the eye It bears the Soul as bold As it were rocked in Steel With Arms of Steel at either side It joins behind the Veil To what, could We presume The Bridge would cease to […]...
- An Address to the New Tay Bridge Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay, With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array, And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye Strong enough all windy storms to defy. And as I gaze upon thee my heart feels gay, Because thou are the greatest railway bridge of the […]...
- Conscientious Objector I shall die, but That is all that I shall do for Death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor. He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, Business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning. But I will not hold the […]...
- Ballad of the Army Carts The carts squeak and trundle, the horses whinny, the conscripts go by, each With a bow and arrows at his waist. Their fathers, mothers, wives, and children Run along beside them to see them off. The Hsien-yang Bridge cannot be seen for Dust. They pluck at the men’s clothes, stamp their feet, or stand in […]...
- All Roads That Lead To God Are Good All roads that lead to God are good. What matters it, your faith, or mine? Both centre at the goal divine Of love’s eternal Brotherhood. The kindly life in house or street – The life of prayer and mystic rite – The student’s search for truth and light – These paths at one great Junction […]...
- Broceliande Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade, Thou art set on the shores of the sea down the haze Of horizons untravelled, unscanned. Untroubled, untouched with the woes of this world Are the moon-marshalled hosts that invade Broceliande. Only at dusk, when lavender clouds in the orient twilight disband, Vanishing where all […]...
- WITH A WATER-LILY SEE, dear, what thy lover brings; ‘Tis the flower with the white wings. Buoyed upon the quiet stream In the spring it lay adream. Homelike to bestow this guest, Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast; There its leaves the secret keep Of a wave both still and deep. Child, beware the tarn-fed stream; Danger, […]...
- Lament For Meng Hao-Jan I can never see my old friend again- The river Han still streams to the east I might question some old man of his place- River and hills-empty is Tsaichou....
- The River of Leith As I stood upon the Dean Bridge and viewed the beautiful scenery, I felt fascinated and my heart was full of glee, And I exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight, In all my travels I never saw such a sight. The scenery is so enchanting to look upon That all tourists will say, “Dull care, […]...
- The Angel's Kiss An angel stood beside the bed Where lay the living and the dead. He gave the mother her who died A kiss that Christ the Crucified Had sent to greet the weary soul When, worn and faint, it reached its goal. He gave the infant kisses twain, One on the breast, one on the brain. […]...
- The Lay Of The Mountain To the solemn abyss leads the terrible path, The life and death winding dizzy between; In thy desolate way, grim with menace and wrath, To daunt thee the spectres of giants are seen; That thou wake not the wild one, all silently tread Let thy lip breathe no breath in the pathway of dread! High […]...
- Read Sweet how others strove Read Sweet how others strove Till we are stouter What they renounced Till we are less afraid How many times they bore the faithful witness Till we are helped As if a Kingdom cared! Read then of faith That shone above the fagot Clear strains of Hymn The River could not drown Brave names of […]...
- The Tragedy Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew; For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night, Stole a bottleful of Heenzo from the desk whereon I write. I am certain sure he did it […]...
- In Response To A Rumor That The Oldest Whorehouse In Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned I will grieve alone, As I strolled alone, years ago, down along The Ohio shore. I hid in the hobo jungle weeds Upstream from the sewer main, Pondering, gazing. I saw, down river, At Twenty-third and Water Streets By the vinegar works, The doors open in early evening. Swinging their purses, the women Poured down […]...
- Elliott Hawkins I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you Against the evils of discontent and envy, And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union, […]...
- Aaron Holiness on the head, Light and perfection on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead To led them unto life and rest. Thus are true Aarons dressed. Profaneness in my head, Defects and darkness in my breast, A noise of passions ringing me for dead Unto a place where is no rest. Poor priest […]...
- Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World Whether what we sense of this world Is the what of this world only, or the what Of which of several possible worlds which what? something of what we sense May be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense. For the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance Of travelers, eating […]...
- ANOTHER Go! obedient to my call, Turn to profit thy young days, Wiser make betimes thy breast In Fate’s balance as it sways, Seldom is the cock at rest; Thou must either mount, or fall, Thou must either rule and win, Or submissively give in, Triumph, or else yield to clamour: Be the anvil or the […]...
- Question Body my house My horse my hound What will I do When you are fallen Where will I sleep How will I ride What will I hunt Where can I go Without my mount All eager and quick How will I know In thicket ahead Is danger or treasure When Body my good Bright dog […]...
- Shells Reaching down arm-deep into bright water I gathered on white sand under waves Shells, drifted up on beaches where I alone Inhabit a finite world of years and days. I reached my arm down a myriad years To gather treasure from the yester-milliennial sea-floor, Held in my fingers forms shaped on the day of creation. […]...
- Attraction The meadow and the mountain with desire Gazed on each other, till a fierce unrest Surged ‘neath the meadow’s seemingly calm breast, And all the mountain’s fissures ran with fire. A mighty river rolled between them there. What could the mountain do but gaze and burn? What could the meadow do but look and yearn, […]...
- I Keep Six Honest I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. I let them rest […]...
- Leudeman's-on-the-River Toward even when the day leans down, To kiss the upturned face of night, Out just beyond the loud-voiced town I know a spot of calm delight. Like crimson arrows from a quiver The red rays pierce the water flowing, While we go dreaming, singing, rowing, To Leudeman’s-on-the-River. The hills, like some glad mocking-bird, Send […]...
- Dream Land Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep: Awake her not. Led by a single star, She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot. She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, For twilight cold and lorn And water springs. Through […]...
- Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
- The Reveille Trumpets of the Lancer Corps Sound a loud reveille; Sound it over Sydney shore, Send the message far and wide Down the Richmond River side. Boot and Saddle, mount and ride, Sound a loud reveille. Whither go ye, Lancers gay, With your bold reveille? O’er the ocean far away From your sunny southern home, Over […]...
- 315. Song-Out over the Forth OUT over the Forth, I look to the North; But what is the north and its Highlands to me? The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea. But I look to the west when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my […]...
- The Child on the Curbstone The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced, Stared down on that golden river. I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak Of a boy who could not shiver. His father’s hand forced him to stand, The traffic thundered slaughter; One foot he thrust in the whirling dust As it were running water. As in a dream […]...
- On Prayer You ask me how to pray to someone who is not. All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard, Above landscapes the color of ripe gold Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun. That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal Where […]...
- Psalm 107 part 4 Deliverance from storms and shipwreck; or, The seaman’s song. Would you behold the works of God, His wonders in the world abroad, Go with the mariners, and trace The unknown regions of the seas. They leave their native shores behind, And seize the favor of the wind; Till God command, and tempests rise That heave […]...
- A Chorus Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms, Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows, Over the cities with their factory darkness, Over the lands where peace is still a power, Over all these and all this planet carries A power broods, invisible monarch, a stranger To some, but by many trusted. Man’s a believer […]...
- Puritans Sidling upon the river, the white boat Has volleyed with its cannon all the morning, Shaken the shore towns like a Judgment warning, Telling the palsied water its demand That the crime come to the top again, and float, That the sunk murder rise to the light and land. Blam! In the noon’s perfected brilliance […]...