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The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,
Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd,
The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest,
Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge.

The medieval navigators rise before me,

The world of 1492, with its awaken'd enterprise,

Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring,

The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.

And who art thou sad shade?

Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,

With majestic limbs and pious beaming eyes,

Spreading around with every look of thine a golden world,
Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.

As the chief histrion,

Down to the footlights walks in some great scena,
Dominating the rest I see the Admiral himself,
(History's type of courage, action, faith,)

Behold him sail from Palos leading his little fleet,
His voyage behold, his return, his great fame,

His misfortunes, calumniators, behold him a prisoner, chain'd,
Behold his dejection, poverty, death.

(Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes,

Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?

Lies the seed unreck'd for centuries in the ground? lo, to God'

due occasion,

Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,
And fills the earth with use and beauty.)

7

Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,

Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
The young maturity of brood and bloom,

To realms of budding bibles.

O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,

Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,

Of man, the voyage of his mind's return,

To reason's early paradise,

Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions,
Again with fair creation.

8

O we can wait no longer,

We too take ship O soul,

Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,

Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,

Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)

Caroling free, singing our song of God,

Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

With laugh and many a kiss,

(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation,)

O soul thou pleasest me, I thee.

Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,

But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,

Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night, Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,

Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,

Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,

Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,

I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendent,

Nameless, the fibre and the breath,

Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them, Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,

Thou moral, spiritual fountain ·

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Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?) Thou pulse-thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,

That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,

Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,

How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if,

out of myself,

I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,

At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,

And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,

Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.

Greater than stars or suns,

Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;

What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?

What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?

What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection

strength?

What cheerful willingness for others' sake to give up all?
For others' sake to suffer all?

Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev'd,
The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage done,
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain'd,
As fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.

Passage to more than India!

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Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those?
Disportest thou on waters such as those?

Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?

Then have thy bent unleash'd.

Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!

Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems! You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach'd you.

Passage to more than India! all.

O secret of the earth and sky!

Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!

Of

you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land! Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!

O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!

O day and night, passage to you!

O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
Passage to you!

Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins !
Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor !

W

Cut the hawsers haul out shake out every sail !

Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?

Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

Sail forth

steer for the deep waters only,

Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul !

O farther farther sail!

O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail !

A

PRAYER OF COLUMBUS.

BATTER'D, wreck'd old man,

Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,

Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken'd and nigh to death,

I take my way along the island's edge,

Venting a heavy heart.

I am too full of woe!

Haply I may not live another day;

I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,

Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,

Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee, commune with Thee, Report myself once more to Thee.

Thou knowest my years entire, my life,

My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely ; Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth,

Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations, Thou knowest how before I commenced I devoted all to come to Thee,

Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows and strictly kept them,

Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee,

In shackles, prison'd, in disgrace, repining not,
Accepting all from Thee, as duly come from Thee.

All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee,

My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,
Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;
Intentions, purports, aspirations mine, leaving results to Thee.

O I am sure they really came from Thee,

The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will,

The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,
A message from the Heavens whispering to me even in sleep,
These sped me on.

By me and these the work so far accomplish'd,

By me earth's elder cloy'd and stifled lands uncloy'd, unloos'd,
By me the hemispheres rounded and tied, the unknown to the known.

The end I know not, it is all in Thee,

Or small or great I know not — haply what broad fields, what lands, Haply the brutish measureless human undergrowth I know, Transplanted there may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee, Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn'd to reapingtools,

Haply the lifeless cross I know, Europe's dead cross, may bud and blossom there.

One effort more, my altar this bleak sand;
That Thou O God my life hast lighted,

With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,

Light rare untellable, lighting the very light,

Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages;

For that O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,

Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee.

My terminus near,

The clouds already closing in upon me,

The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost,

I yield my ships to Thee.

My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,

My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd,

Let the old timbers part, I will not part,

I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,
Thee, Thee at least I know.

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