In arid cataracts Where meagre cattle stray To search the meagre tracts Of bitter grass: for aye They move not, live not, lie Dull eyes that watch the world, And exiles asking why God brought them here or hurl’d. We would we could have torn This winding web of fate Which round us barely born Hath bought us to this state Of being cast away Among these tombs. The river Of life here day by day Runs downward slower ever Into black washes. True Yet holds our destiny— To live a year or two, Look round us once and die. If we should try to trace In portions, line by line, The beauty of a face To know why thus divine, Seeing but many curves, We miss the inner soul And find no part deserves That merit of the whole. And so to analyse Thy mournful spirit vain, O Exile; but our sighs Suffice to prove the pain. To grow from much to more In knowledge, and to put A power to every power, A foot before a foot, Toward that goal of good That glimmers thro’ the night Above the time and mood, A star of constant light; At last to meet the dark, The goal not reach’d indeed, But full of hours and work, Are, Exile, not thy creed. And less to leap to catch The spinning spokes of change; In our brief life to snatch All aspects and to range Full-face with every view; To sit with those who toil, Great spirits, toiling too; Still less to fan or foil Those fires that, rushing fast Thro’ all the people’s life, Break roaring round the past In renovating strife. If in the energic West Man ever grows more large, Like ocean without rest Exploring at the marge, Here lower yet he turns For ever downward thrust— The baleful Sun-God burns And breaks him into dust; Or like his native plains Where nothing new appears, Or hath appeared, remains Unchanged a thousand years. II Tho’ sorrows darkly veiled At all men’s tables (nor The guests make question, paled, Nor children hush before Those presences of grief) Sit, yet to all men due Due rights; the sweet relief Of home; the friendship true; The dying word; to feel Their country in their keep; To heave along the wheel, And push against the steep. But in this wilderness, Wed to a rock or two, What joys have we to bless? Far, far, our friends and few; And thou, O happy Land, We dream of thee in vain— One moment see, then stand Within this waste again. The great earth in her zones Matureth day by day; But we, like waiting stones, Know time but by decay.