And many a dream-reared mountain crest
    My feet have trod,
There where thy Minster in the West
    Gropes toward God. 
Yet, from thy presence if I go,
    By woodlands deep
Or ocean-fringes, thou, I know,
    Wilt haunt my sleep;
Thy restless tides of life will foam,
    Still, in my sight;
Thy imperturbable dark dome
    Will crown my night.

O sea of living waves that roll
    On golden sands,
Or break on tragic reef and shoal
    ’Mid fatal lands;
O forest wrought of living leaves,
    Some filled with Spring,
Where joy life’s festal raiment weaves
    And all birds sing,—­
Some trampled in the miry ways,
    Or whirled along
By fury of tempestuous days,—­
    Take thou my song!

For thou hast scorned not heretofore
    The gifts of rhyme
I dropped, half faltering, at thy door,
    City sublime;
And though ’tis true I am but guest
    Within thy gate,
Unto thy hands I owe the best
    Awards of fate. 
Imperial hostess! thanks from me
    To thee belong: 
O living forest, living sea,
    Take thou my song!

THE DREAM OF MAN

To the eye and the ear of the Dreamer
  This Dream out of darkness flew,
Through the horn or the ivory portal,
  But he wist not which of the two.

It was the Human Spirit,
  Of all men’s souls the Soul,
Man the unwearied climber,
  That climbed to the unknown goal. 
And up the steps of the ages,
  The difficult steep ascent,
Man the unwearied climber
  Pauseless and dauntless went. 
AEons rolled behind him
  With thunder of far retreat,
And still as he strove he conquered
  And laid his foes at his feet. 
Inimical powers of nature,
  Tempest and flood and fire,
The spleen of fickle seasons
  That loved to baulk his desire,
The breath of hostile climates,
  The ravage of blight and dearth,
The old unrest that vexes
  The heart of the moody earth,
The genii swift and radiant
  Sabreing heaven with flame,
He, with a keener weapon,
  The sword of his wit, overcame. 
Disease and her ravening offspring,
  Pain with the thousand teeth,
He drave into night primeval,
  The nethermost worlds beneath,
Till the Lord of Death, the undying,
  Ev’n Asrael the King,
No more with Furies for heralds
  Came armed with scourge and sting,
But gentle of voice and of visage,
  By calm Age ushered and led,
A guest, serenely featured,
  Entering, woke no dread. 
And, as the rolling aeons
  Retreated with pomp of sound,
Man’s spirit, grown too lordly
  For this mean orb to bound,
By arts in his youth undreamed of
  His terrene fetters broke,
With enterprise ethereal
  Spurning the natal yoke,
And, stung with divine ambition,
  And fired with a glorious greed,
He annexed the stars and the planets
  And peopled them with his seed.