take upon my lips the speech
Of those whose voices Heaven fills
With splendor?

And yet--
I cannot quite forget
That in the underdawn of dreams
I have felt the faint surmise
Shining through the starry deep of my sleep
That I with God went singing once
Up and down with suns and storms
Through the phantom-pillared forms
And stately-silent naves
And thunder-dreaming caves
Of Heaven.

Great Spirit--Thou who in my being's burning mesh
Hath wrought the shining of the mist through and through the flesh,
Who, through the double-wondered glory of the dust
Hast thrust
Habits of skies upon me, souls of days and nights,
Where are the deeds that needs must be,
The dreams, the high delights,
That I once more may hear my voice
From cloudy door to door rejoice--
May stretch the boundaries of love
Beyond the mumbling, mock horizons of my fears
To the faint-remembered glory of those years--
May lift my soul
And reach this Heaven of thine
With mine?
Where are the gleams?
Thou shalt tell me,
Shalt compel me.
The sometime glory shall return
I know.

The day shall be
When by wondering I shall learn
With vapor-fingers to discern
The music-hidden keys of skies--
Shall touch like thee
Until they answer me
The chords of the silent air
And strike the wild and slumber-music out
Dreaming there.
Above the hills of singing that I know
On the trackless, soundless path
That wonder hath
I shall go,
Beyond the street-cry of the poet,
The hurdy-gurdy singing
Of the throngs,
To the Throne of Silence,
Where the Doors
That guard the farthest faintest shores
Of Day
Swing their bars,
And shut the songs of heaven in
From all our dreaming-doing din,
Behind the stars.

There, at last,
The climbing and the singing passed,
And the cry,
My hushed and listening soul shall lie
At the feet of the place
Where the Singer sings
Who Hides His Face.

VII

THE IDEA OF GREAT MEN

"_I had a vision under a green hedge
A hedge of hips and haws--Men yet shall hear
Archangels rolling over the high mountains
Old Satan's empty skull._"

As it looks from MOUNT TOM, casting a general glance around, the Earth
has about been put into shape, now, to do things.

The Earth has never been seen before looking so trim and
convenient--so ready for action--as it is now. Steamships and looms
and printing pr