Classic Poem

I.

Each day is like a continent. We ride
From purple dawn to eve's declining shore,
Climbing expectant where white eagles soar
Across the central blue. The great divide
Is set between two peaks that gaping wide
Stand mute apart and keep a bastioned door
Of vision open to the ample floor
Of vast arenas sloping to the tide.

Ye gates of God that span the pillared light,
How oft, dull-eyed, your sculptured walls I pass,
To all their towering beauty blind, alas!
And dead to all their harmony and might.
Henceforth, each morn, with mounting steps I plod
Until I reach the spreading gates of God.
II.

Here where my feet attain the central height,
My soul goes forth to vaster fields of power.
Each day some titan toil, each glorious hour
Some clearer purpose bursts upon the sight.
On wings of dream, on billows of the light,
I turn each moment to some lofty tower
Among the sun-drenched hills, or fragrant bower
Where joy is free from menacing and blight.

I halt my goings in the heights of day
To glimpse my dream of happiness; in awe
My soul leans back upon the changeless law
And lo! the thing is mine I prized alway.
By faith transformed, the hope of my ideal
Has now become the actual, the real.