I

I, WHO am lover of brown paths that lead into deep, cloistered forests,
Happy, if only they bend, like my vagabond thoughts, to new vistas;
I, who see never the tangle of glistening and musical waters
Unmoved by desire to companion them on to the goal of all streamlets;
I, who in boyhood would race with the round, drifting clouds of the June-time,
Coveting all that they whisper to mortals of voyage and vision;
I, who was tranced by the call of the Walkyrie storm in the midnight,
Awed by the pageant of stars and the vanishing glory of rainbows —
How can I fear the Unknown, the zest of the night and the morning!

II

I, who meet strangers as possible friends to be sought for and cherished,
Knowing that once the most cherished of friends was a possible stranger;
I, to whom each is a ship on a virginal sea, within hailing,
Craving some news of the port, some correction of chart or of compass;
I, tempted to good or to bad by a venturous quest after beauty,
Sure it alone will remain beyond our illusions and changes;
I, who in time of dismay believe that all wrong is forgetting,
That Man is no plaything of Fate, to be broken, discarded and wasted —
How can I fear the Unknown, the hope and the friend of the fearful!

III

I, who see Love as the gift of all gifts, as an instinct of beauty,
Stirring the lowest to climb to his dream on the farseeing summit;
Law as the bond of the stars; Need as the thirst of the human;
Nothing as good for ourselves that is not the birthright of others: —
How, in the candor of night, can I shrink from the Power that gave us
Heart for the joy and the struggle, mind to engage with the darkness,
Little by little revealing the prints of His footsteps eternal?
Think you that all shall be told, that the last day is naught but a curtain?
Hail to the Mystery Glorious, the path of our greatest and dearest!