In arid cataracts

Where meagre cattle stray

To search the meagre tracts

Of bitter grass: for aye

They move not, live not, lie

Dull eyes that watch the world,

And exiles asking why

God brought them here or hurl’d.

We would we could have torn

This winding web of fate

Which round us barely born

Hath bought us to this state

Of being cast away

Among these tombs. The river

Of life here day by day

Runs downward slower ever

Into black washes. True

Yet holds our destiny—

To live a year or two,

Look round us once and die.

If we should try to trace

In portions, line by line,

The beauty of a face

To know why thus divine,

Seeing but many curves,

We miss the inner soul

And find no part deserves

That merit of the whole.

And so to analyse

Thy mournful spirit vain,

O Exile; but our sighs

Suffice to prove the pain.

To grow from much to more

In knowledge, and to put

A power to every power,

A foot before a foot,

Toward that goal of good

That glimmers thro’ the night

Above the time and mood,

A star of constant light;

At last to meet the dark,

The goal not reach’d indeed,

But full of hours and work,

Are, Exile, not thy creed.

And less to leap to catch

The spinning spokes of change;

In our brief life to snatch

All aspects and to range

Full-face with every view;

To sit with those who toil,

Great spirits, toiling too;

Still less to fan or foil

Those fires that, rushing fast

Thro’ all the people’s life,

Break roaring round the past

In renovating strife.

If in the energic West

Man ever grows more large,

Like ocean without rest

Exploring at the marge,

Here lower yet he turns

For ever downward thrust—

The baleful Sun-God burns

And breaks him into dust;

Tho’ sorrows darkly veiled

At all men’s tables (nor

The guests make question, paled,

Nor children hush before

Those presences of grief)

Sit, yet to all men due

Due rights; the sweet relief

Of home; the friendship true;

The dying word; to feel

Their country in their keep;

To heave along the wheel,

And push against the steep.

But in this wilderness,

Wed to a rock or two,

What joys have we to bless?

Far, far, our friends and few;

And thou, O happy Land,

We dream of thee in vain—

One moment see, then stand

Within this waste again.

The great earth in her zones

Matureth day by day;

But we, like waiting stones,

Know time but by decay.

Grief hath a shadow, shame;

And manhood, meanly tost

In woes without a name

And sorrows that are lost,