The gods talk in the breath of the woods,
They talk in the shaken pine,
And fill the long reach of the old seashore
With dialogue divine;
And the poet who overhears
Some random word they say
Is the fated man of men
Whom the ages must obey: 
One who having nectar drank
Into blissful orgies sank;
He takes no mark of night or day,
He cannot go, he cannot stay,
He would, yet would not, counsel keep,
But, like a walker in his sleep
With staring eye that seeth none,
Ridiculously up and down
Seeks how he may fitly tell
The heart-o’erlading miracle.

Not yet, not yet,
Impatient friend,—­
A little while attend;
Not yet I sing:  but I must wait,
My hand upon the silent string,
Fully until the end. 
I see the coming light,
I see the scattered gleams,
Aloft, beneath, on left and right
The stars’ own ether beams;
These are but seeds of days,
Not yet a steadfast morn,
An intermittent blaze,
An embryo god unborn.

How all things sparkle,
The dust is alive,
To the birth they arrive: 
I snuff the breath of my morning afar,
I see the pale lustres condense to a star: 
The fading colors fix,
The vanishing are seen,
And the world that shall be
Twins the world that has been. 
I know the appointed hour,
I greet my office well,
Never faster, never slower
Revolves the fatal wheel! 
The Fairest enchants me,
The Mighty commands me,
Saying, ’Stand in thy place;
Up and eastward turn thy face;
As mountains for the morning wait,
Coming early, coming late,
So thou attend the enriching Fate
Which none can stay, and none accelerate. 
I am neither faint nor weary,
Fill thy will, O faultless heart! 
Here from youth to age I tarry,—­
Count it flight of bird or dart. 
My heart at the heart of things
Heeds no longer lapse of time,
Rushing ages moult their wings,
Bathing in thy day sublime.

The sun set, but set not his hope:—­
Stars rose, his faith was earlier up: 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy,
Deeper and older seemed his eye,
And matched his sufferance sublime
The taciturnity of Time.

Beside his hut and shading oak,
Thus to himself the poet spoke,
’I have supped to-night with gods,
I will not go under a wooden roof: 
As I walked among the hills
In the love which Nature fills,
The great stars did not shine aloof,
They hurried down from their deep abodes
And hemmed me in their glittering troop.

’Divine Inviters!  I accept
The courtesy ye have shown and kept
From ancient ages for the bard,
To modulate
With finer fate
A fortune harsh and hard. 
With aim like yours
I watch your course,
Who never break your lawful dance
By error or intemperance. 
O birds of ether without wings! 
O heavenly ships without a sail! 
O fire of fire!  O best of things! 
O mariners who never fail! 
Sail swiftly through your amber vault,
An animated law, a presence to exalt.’