| |
| ON the isle of Penikese, | |
| Ringed about by sapphire seas, | |
| Fanned by breezes salt and cool, | |
| Stood the Master with his school. | |
| Over sails that not in vain | 5 |
| Wooed the west-wind’s steady strain, | |
| Line of coast that low and far | |
| Stretched its undulating bar, | |
| Wings aslant along the rim | |
| Of the waves they stooped to skim, | 10 |
| Rock and isle and glistening bay, | |
| Fell the beautiful white day. | |
| |
| Said the Master to the youth: | |
| “We have come in search of truth, | |
| Trying with uncertain key | 15 |
| Door by door of mystery; | |
| We are reaching, through His laws, | |
| To the garment-hem of Cause, | |
| Him, the endless, unbegun, | |
| The Unnameable, the One, | 20 |
| Light of all our light the Source, | |
| Life of life, and Force of force. | |
| As with fingers of the blind, | |
| We are groping here to find | |
| What the hieroglyphics mean | 25 |
| Of the Unseen in the seen, | |
| What the Thought which underlies | |
| Nature’s masking and disguise, | |
| What it is that hides beneath | |
| Blight and bloom and birth and death. | 30 |
| By past efforts unavailing, | |
| Doubt and error, loss and failing, | |
| Of our weakness made aware, | |
| On the threshold of our task | |
| Let us light and guidance ask, | 35 |
| Let us pause in silent prayer!” | |
| |
| Then the Master in his place | |
| Bowed his head a little space, | |
| And the leaves by soft airs stirred, | |
| Lapse of wave and cry of bird, | 40 |
| Left the solemn hush unbroken | |
| Of that wordless prayer unspoken, | |
| While its wish, on earth unsaid, | |
| Rose to heaven interpreted. | |
| As in life’s best hours we hear | 45 |
| By the spirit’s finer ear | |
| His low voice within us, thus | |
| The All-Father heareth us; | |
| And his holy ear we pain | |
| With our noisy words and vain. | 50 |
| Not for him our violence, | |
| Storming at the gates of sense; | |
| His the primal language, his | |
| The eternal silences! | |
| Even the careless heart was moved, | 55 |
| And the doubting gave assent, | |
| With a gesture reverent, | |
| To the Master well-beloved. | |
| As thin mists are glorified | |
| By the light they cannot hide, | 60 |
| All who gazed upon him saw, | |
| Through its veil of tender awe, | |
| How his face was still uplit | |
| By the old sweet look of it, | |
| Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer, | 65 |
| And the love that casts out fear. | |
| Who the secret may declare | |
| Of that brief, unuttered prayer? | |
| Did the shade before him come | |
| Of the inevitable doom, | 70 |
| Of the end of earth so near, | |
| And Eternity’s new year? | |
| In the lap of sheltering seas | |
| Rests the isle of Penikese; | |
| But the lord of the domain | 75 |
| Comes not to his own again: | |
| Where the eyes that follow fail, | |
| On a vaster sea his sail | |
| Drifts beyond our beck and hail! | |
| Other lips within its bound | 80 |
| Shall the laws of life expound; | |
| Other eyes from rock and shell | |
| Read the world’s old riddles well; | |
| But when breezes light and bland | |
| Blow from Summer’s blossomed land, | 85 |
| When the air is glad with wings, | |
| And the blithe song-sparrow sings, | |
| Many an eye with his still face | |
| Shall the living ones displace, | |
| Many an ear the word shall seek | 90 |
| He alone could fitly speak. | |
| And one name forevermore | |
| Shall be uttered o’er and o’er | |
| By the waves that kiss the shore, | |
| By the curlew’s whistle, sent | 95 |
| Down the cool, sea-scented air; | |
| In all voices known to her | |
| Nature own her worshipper, | |
| Half in triumph, half lament. | |
| Thither love shall tearful turn, | 100 |
| Friendship pause uncovered there, | |
| And the wisest reverence learn | |
| From the Master’s silent prayer. | |
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