Celestial Truth, most beauteous, most austere,
White-flaming Spirit, take this homage-song
Of one who seeketh thee now many a year
Life's paven ways and woodland paths along.
Thou know'st how oft the heart is faint for fear
To lose thy trace amid the eddying throng,
How oft the dewdrop neighbors with the tear
On moss and heather where the foot went wrong.

Ah, how may darkness comprehend the light,
And how should I, enmeshed and clouded so
In multitudinous error, view aright
Thy radiant visage and its glory know?
For subtile filaments of falsehood blight
The pattern fair whereto my deeds would grow,
And still their fruits are bitter in despite
Of all this groping of the roots below.

Well might my quest despair of thee, shouldst thou
Despair of it, but still my haunted days,
By each mysterious leafage of the bough,
And ashes blanched by the escaping blaze,
By lure of singing waves before the prow,
And sunset runes in sard and chrysoprase,
Awake the bosom Sphinx, renew the vow,
And once again illume the wistful gaze.

For even here thy beams encompass me,
Tortured and solaced by the happy pain
To feel the effulgence that I may not see
Divinely fret the shadow and the stain.
Still let me love thy light, though long it be
I wander blind amid the pilgrim train.
If there is patience in eternity,
Thy votary shall find thy healing fane.