My elder brothers in the eternal throng
Have caught before,--
Faint murmurs of the surge,
The deep, surrounding, everlasting roar
Of a life-ocean without port or shore,--
Ere I depart, compelled to urge
My fragile bark with trembling from the verge
Of this Earth-island, into that Unknown,
Where worlds, like souls forlorn, go wandering alone!

Oh, let me not die young,
With all that song unsung,
A swift and voiceless fugitive,
From darkness coming and in darkness lost,
Before thy solemn Pentecost,
Dawning within the soul, shall give
The burning utterance of its flaming tongue,--
The boon whereby to other souls we live!
Thy worlds are flashing with immortal splendor,
For human speech on heights of human song
Faintly to render,
And pour back along
Its mountain grandeur, the accumulate rain
Of star-light, dream-light, thoughts of joy and pain,
Of love, hate, right and wrong,
In floods of utterance sublime and strong,
In dewy effluence beautiful and tender.

The kindred darknesses
Of caverned earth and fathomless thought,