Classic Poem

I.

Whither , oh, whither, my ship, wilt thou go?
I launch thee upon an invisible sea;
Through the gloom of dreams
Where naught is but seems,
Through the realms where the winds of wild hope blow,
Through the chill, clear air and sunlight strong of thought,
Through the land of sure reality,
Through regions of splendor by marvellous hands of spirits wrought,
I watch thy sail
Across the ocean's broad expanses pass and fail.

II.

From island to island thy swift sails bear thee,
From continent to continent thy sharp keel glides;
Where the wild wind abides
In his home of storms, thy gleaming sails declare thee;
From the sweet green shores of summer lands
Thy passionate joys and longings tear thee,
Till the icy fields of the winter's regions,
Resplendent with shine of innumerous legions
Of sun-touched sparkles of stainless snow,
Engird thee with lambent and languid glow.

III.

Wilt thou not pause and rest,
By the mild winds be caressed
Of a patient love that would bind and hold thee,
In arms of quiet and slumber enfold thee,
Shield thee from pain, and keep thee unoppressed
In its warm storm-shielded nest?
Nay — nay — through the measureless reaches of time,
And boundless changes of possible spaces,
Mutable bliss of mutable climes,
Vagrant joys of mutable places,
Summer and winter and silver spring,
Late autumn when the birds no longer sing,
Passions and splendors and aspirations,
And Pleasure's multitudinous-clothed nations,
Sorrows, and all the delight they bring, —
Sail, O my ship, sail, O my thought,
Seek what none other has ever sought;
On ways untrod save by royal feet,
On winds for weaklings too rapturous-fleet,
Speed, O my ship;
Linger not where the dull time employs
Sullen labor in sullen joys;
Forth through the ether, my ship, my thought,
Through regions thine own impulses have wrought,
Ceaselessly sail,
Till thou sink and fail
In the heart of sovereign and sunlike God,
In the passionate soul that floods the world,
Till the path thy keel has overtrod
Leads to the light in whose glory hurled
Thou wilt mix, O my thought, with the life that is,
With the supreme bliss of supremest bliss,
With the strife and the life
Wherewith the All is rife,
Till thou wilt be
Conjoined with the sovereign Divinity!