THIS mound is sweet to me. All my blood aches,
Since driven onward like a dark hill-cloud,
Dizzy with secret lightnings nowhere spent,
I chase yon happy sun to his bright death,
Alas, I know not whither: but I know
I shall not see the myriad shields uphung
In camp to-night, nor on our cypresses
Smoke rise and sink in loath blue fountain spray.
So far, so far I drift from even them
Who fill one gourd with me, who cheer my heart,
Who come in, warm and singing, to the tent,
And miss me who am gone away, I think,
Forever, though a day; out of their world,
Though over a few leagues of upland grass!
Why hast Thou laid on me magic of pain,
God unrevealèd? Was I drawn from sleep,
Man’s duty, body’s health, to be mere wind,
Wind undirected over fallow wastes?
What wouldst Thou ask of me, no sword of Thine,
No ark of service? Yet aware of Thee
I am and shall be. All my thought, outspread,
Is open unto Thee: a lonely beach
Where the wide sobbing surf ebbs everywhere,
And, hard upon each dawn-encolored wave,
Flutters the wavy line of drying sand
Back to the verge: the white line, shadow-quick,
Thrilling there in the dark: an earthen gleam,
Vain huntress of the sea. Suffer me now
To follow and attain Thee, fugitive,
And be my rest, who hast, my whole life long,
Been mine unrest: implored, immortal Love!