| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 281. Attainment |
| By Madison Julius Cawein (1865–1914) |
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| ON the Heights of Great Endeavour,— | |
| Where Attainment looms forever,— | |
| Toiling upward, ceasing never, | |
| Climb the fateful Centuries: | |
| Up the difficult, dark places, | 5 |
| Joy and anguish in their faces, | |
| On they strive, the living races, | |
| And the dead, that no one sees. | |
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| Shape by shape, with brow uplifted, | |
| One by one, where night is rifted, | 10 |
| Pass the victors, many gifted, | |
| Where the heaven opens wide: | |
| While below them, fallen or seated, | |
| Mummy-like, or shadow-sheeted, | |
| Stretch the lines of the defeated,— | 15 |
| Scattered on the mountainside. | |
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| And each victor, passing wanly, | |
| Gazes on that Presence lonely, | |
| With unmoving eyes where only | |
| Grow the dreams for which men die: | 20 |
| Grow the dreams, the far, ethereal, | |
| That on earth assume material | |
| Attributes, and, vast, imperial, | |
| Rear their battlements on high. | |
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| Kingdoms, marble-templed, towered, | 25 |
| Where the Arts, the many-dowered,— | |
| That for centuries have flowered, | |
| Trampled under War’s wild heel,— | |
| Lift immortal heads and golden, | |
| Blossoms of the times called olden, | 30 |
| Soul-alluring, earth-withholden, | |
| Universal in appeal. | |
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| As they enter,—high and lowly,— | |
| On the hush these words fall slowly:— | |
| ‘Ye who kept your purpose holy, | 35 |
| Never dreamed your cause was vain, | |
| Look!—Behold, through time abating, | |
| How the long, sad days of waiting, | |
| Striving, starving, hoping, hating, | |
| Helped your spirit to attain. | 40 |
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| ‘For to all who dream, aspire, | |
| Marry effort to desire, | |
| On the cosmic heights, in fire | |
| Beaconing, my form appears:— | |
| I am marvel, I am morning! | 45 |
| Beauty in man’s heart and warning!— | |
| On my face none looks with scorning, | |
| And no soul attains who fears.’ | |
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