The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses; There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding. Thought’s self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb, And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam: Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing. A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle, A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty: We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers. _I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._ We spur to a land of no name, outracing the stormwind; We leap to the infinite dark like the sparks from the anvil. Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow. ODE FOR A MASTER MARINER ASHORE BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY There in his room, whene’er the moon looks in, And silvers now a shell, and now a fin, And o’er his chart glides like an argosy, Quiet and old sits he. Danger! he hath grown homesick for thy smile. Where hidest thou the while, heart’s boast, Strange face of beauty sought and lost, Star-face that lured him out from boyhood’s isle? Blown clear from dull indoors, his dreams behold Night-water smoke and sparkle as of old, The taffrail lurch, the sheets triumphant toss Their phosphor-flowers across. Towards ocean’s either rim the long-exiled Wears on, till stunted cedars throw A lace-like shadow over snow, Or tropic fountains wash their agates wild. Awhile, play up and down the briny spar Odors of Surinam and Zanzibar, Till blithely thence he ploughs, in visions new, The Labradorian blue; All homeless hurricanes about him break; The purples of spent day he sees From Samos to the Hebrides, And drowned men dancing darkly in his wake. Where the small deadly foam-caps, well descried, Top, tier on tier, the hundred-mountained tide, Away, and far away, his pride is borne, Riding the noisy morn, Plunges, and preens her wings, and laughs to know The helm and tightening halyards still Follow the urging of his will, And scoff at sullen earth a league below. Mischance hath barred him from his heirdom high, And shackled him with many an inland tie, And of his only wisdom made a jibe Amid an alien tribe: No wave abroad but moans his fallen state, The trade-wind ranges now, the trade-wind roars! Why is it on a yellowing page he pores? Ah, why this hawser fast to a garden gate?