The Road Into The World

We travelled by an old and beaten road, But everything we saw was strange and new: Each ripple of the mountain stream that flowed Beside us, every drop of sunlit dew That filled the flowers that on the wayside grew, The laughter of the south-west wind at play Along its own untrodden path of blue, All made the earth forget its yesterday, And with their own youth touched that old and beaten way.

They told us that our road would lead at last Into the world,--not that which once was spread Before our childhood’s dream, unknown and vast, But one which man had fashioned in its stead. This world lay now before us, and we sped To drink its wonders, counting not the cost. Our endless pathways to their ends had led; The bounds of our unbounded we had crossed; The unknown way was found, but our old world was lost.

We had exchanged our infinite domains, The undiscovered regions of our quest, For the round earth wherein no sea remains Uncharted, and no land is unpossessed; But still our hearts were filled with the old zest To travel and adventure and explore: The unknown called us, we could find no rest Till, by those paths which men had trod before, We found the world they found and bore the loads they bore.

With every soul that on the earth is born The whole creation is made young again; And all the paths that pilgrim feet have worn Are new for those who follow,--every stain That marred them is washed out by sun and rain, And verdure fresh makes all their borders sweet. So on that road of bygone joy and pain, With the day’s new-born flowers about our feet, We sought an ancient world grown young our youth to greet.

And pleasant of that world it was to think, And all that we had heard in song and lore Of old grey cities on the ocean’s brink, Where to their anchorage the great ships bore Bales from the Orient, and golden store From the far south, and, dark and grim and tall, Behind the dreaming masts rose floor on floor, Warehouse and granary, and over all Loomed some great tower or dome of Mary or of Paul.

The vanished regions of our old surmise We mourned not now, for eager we had grown To read the record of the centuries, And enter the great kingdoms of the known. Ay! better than the unexplored and lone We deemed that world in which the human heart Was written, where mankind had built and sown, And fought for truth and love, and taken part In the eighth day’s creation--God-inspired Art.

And now our island earth, our bounded home Took new dimensions,--Time transfigured Space; And we beheld vast realms through which to roam Within the limits of our dwelling-place. Dim pathways of the past we turned to pace, And far receding vistas of the years Opened old wonderlands; ’twas ours to trace The labyrinths of love, the vales of tears, And toward the unknown future march as pioneers.

Along the borders of that beaten way Was many a landmark of man’s mortal fate; But hope was ever written in decay, And simple things interpreted the great. A charm was in the wild flowers to translate Death’s ruth, a benediction in the stone Of ruined abbey walls to consecrate The skies that roofed them, and to link the lone Illimitable paths of heaven with our own.

But for far heavenly paths we had no care While still that road before us was untried, And the world called to us its joys to share, Its lore to read, its destinies to guide. Our hearts were filled with a terrestrial pride; We loved our world and gloried in the fame Of those who in its service lived and died, Who fought and laboured to create its claim Amid the countless spheres to hold an honoured name.

To other gods than ours the past has knelt, And creed and cause may sever us or bind; But here upon our common road we felt The bond of bonds that links all humankind,-- Man’s pilgrim fellowship. Through rain and wind, In sunshine and beneath the starry deep, There is one goal for all the world to find, A sacred hope to guard, a watch to keep, And in a little while the comradeship of sleep.