Hymn the Finders! Hymn the bold
Trusters of Earth, those patient ones,
That listen to the subtle words
Of Silence in the streams and stones;
Ponderers of the secret-souled
Bodies quick with ignorant being;
Followers of the clues that thread
Differences and accords;
Wooers of what powers agreeing
May the hands of man bestead;
Seers who have turned aside
From the greeds that ask and ache
Blinded to all else beside,—
Letting the clear spirit take
Truth from vision open-eyed.
Breaks the bud for him that sees
In a world of promises.
Hymn the breaker of the dark,
Hymn the finder of the flame,
Troubler of the essential spark
Lurking in the withered pith
Or from stony prison freed,
Friend and fury, holy need
And fierce destroyer, hard to tame,
Risen, a God to wrestle with!
Hymn the bender of the wheel,
Mother of the shapes of speed!
Hymn the launcher of the keel
Carrying thought’s arrow-aim
Beyond the sundown,—sowing seed
Of man on coasts untrod before,
To widen memory’s haunted shore
And add the nearness of a name.
Far-descended old desire!
That stirred in swarming forest-ages,
Prowled by fear whose stealthy eye
Watched from glooms, where hunger-rages
Ravened; see at last the Hand
Emerging human, stretched to try
Shapes of things with wondering pleasure,
When its strength forgets to kill;
Tempted on to understand,
Serving ways of secret will,—
Fit and fashion, poise and measure.
Hymn the hand that builds the wall
And spans the river, and arches over
Man the worshipper and lover
Song-like stone; the hand so strong
To strike, yet in whose touch is all
Life’s mystery that wooes from things
Their strength, as music from the strings,—
Touch of the mind that seeks behind
The world for the befriending Mind.
Hymn the openers of the gates,
Hymn the changers of the fates!
Hymn the seekers! them that saw,
Past the seeming starry roof
Of human earth, in mazy plan
Bright eternities of law;
Them that neared those orbs to man,
Unafraid, and put to proof
Divination’s ancient scheme;
Stept into the timeless stream,
Star-like spirits among the stars!
Hymn the seekers! Chosen souls,
Grapnel’d in the very marrow
By a thought that night and day
Draws them whither their unknown
Mighty lover far away
Beckons them to the frore Poles
Or new meridians; like to him
Who climbed in Panama the tree,
And splendour of untravelled sea
Smote him like a glorious arrow:
Never shall he rest again
Till he sail that virgin main!
Or like him who quietly
Sitting in his Polar tent
Found so great a way to die;
Hope-forsaken, famine-spent,
Wrote his words of faith and cheer
Till the pen dropt from the hand
That wrote them.
Hymn the lost, who never
Found, but kept high heart to steer
Onward toward the mark they meant,
Sailing out of sight of land.
Wail not them, nor lost endeavour,
For they heard what tranced the ear,
Filled the exulting soul, the song
Pale and prudent mortals fear,
Song of those who, out of Time,
Sing the heights the immortals climb,
The Sirens.