Where did they end,--those pathways wild and lone
Through the dark forest? Lay some shore unknown
Beyond them, where the wind first taught the trees
The sweet sad voices of the murmuring seas?
Oh, whither did they call? The long arcades
Led ever to remoter, dimmer shades;
And from the farthest crest a pathway dipped
Down to some lonelier aisle or darker crypt.
Dear were the open fields to us, and dear
The homely path, the sound of human cheer;
But ’twas the way no foot of man had worn,
The forest’s undiscoverable bourne,
That made our world so wide, its end so far:
And when, in the evening through the trees, a star
Shone o’er the darkening solitudes, it seemed
Nearer than those long quests of which we dreamed.
One day we wandered farther than before
Through leafy maze and dusky corridor
Into the forest’s heart, when far away
We saw a low horizon line of grey
Where all before was dark; and by degrees
Through wider openings among the trees
The daylight grew; and we who thought we stood
Deep in the hidden cloisters of the wood
Were at its end,--only at last to find
A world like that which we had left behind.
There, out beyond us in the evening gold,
Lay homely meadowlands, and farm and fold:
The path we followed to the unknown shore
Led in the end but to some cottage door.
There, with the forest’s end, those regions vast
That childhood showed us, into dreamland passed.
The great world was beyond us; far away,
Over the hills, the lands we knew not lay,--
But others knew them! Now the secret clue
We followed melted in the noonday’s blue,
Or hid among the stars. That broken road
Taught us the boundaries of our abode,--
The gulf ’twixt heaven and earth. A bridge unseen
The hope or faith of man might build between
Our home on earth and some celestial shore;
But ’twas for us no longer to explore
The paths of brave adventure which we trod
In childhood, to the unknown lands of God.