CHARTINGS

There is no moon, only the sea and stars; There is no land, only the vessel's bow On which I stand alone and wonder how Men ever dream of ports beyond the bars

Of Finitude that fix the Here and Now. A meteor falls, and foam beneath me breaks; Dim phosphor fires within it faintly die. So soft the sea is that it seems a sky

On which eternity to life awakes. The universe is spread before my face, Worlds where perchance a million seas like this Are flowing and where tides of pain and bliss

Find, as on earth, so prevalent a place That nothing of their wont we there should miss. The Universe, that man has dared to say Is but one Being — ah, courageous thought!

Which is so vast that hope itself is fraught With shame, while saying it, and shrinks away. Shrinks, even as now! For clouds sweep up the skies And darken the wide waters circling round,

From out whose deep arises the old sound Of Terror unto which no tongue replies But Faith — that nothing ever shall confound. Not only pagan Perseus but the Cross

Is shrouded — with wild wind and wilder rain, That on me beat until my soul again Sings unsurrendering to fears of Loss. For this I know,— yea, tho all else lie hid

Uncharted on the waters of our fate, All lands of Whence or Whither, whose estate In vain imagination seeks to thrid, Yet cannot, for the fog within Death's gate,—

This thing I know, that life, whatever its Source Or Destiny, comes with an upward urge, And that we cannot thwart its mighty surge, But with a joy in strife must keep the course.