As One who having Wandered all Night Long

AS one who having wandered all night long / In a perplexed forest, comes at length / In the first hours, about the matin song, / And when the sun uprises in his strength, / To the fringed margin of the wood, and sees, / Gazing afar before him, many a mile / Of falling country, many fields and trees, / And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean's smile:

I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze: / I, liberated, look abroad on life, / Love, and distress, and dusty travelling ways, / The steersman's helm, the surgeon's helpful knife, / On the lone ploughman's earth-upturning share, / The revelry of cities and the sound / Of seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air, / And of the circling earth the unsupported round:

I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore; / And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands / In adoration, cry aloud and soar / In spirit, high above the supine lands / And the low caves of mortal things, and flee / To the last fields of the universe untrod, / Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea, / And the contented soul is all alone with God.