Randolph
Off to the world; I cannot stay—­
That world I have so often viewed
Here from this upper solitude—­
This bulwark barring strife and trade. 
Love calls me off.  I love a maid,
Loving her silently and long,
Learning for her to hate the wrong,
    Learning for her to seek the right,
To hew at sloth and faint resolve
And thoughts that round but self revolve,
And pray for grace and virtue—­wings
That bear men to the highest things,
    Enwrapt and rising into light. 
For her, for her, O Cloud and Wind! 
I trained my limbs and taught my mind,
Ran, wrestled, clomb, and learned to bend
The cross-bow with each village friend;
And by my hermit-guardian spent
The earliest dimness morning lent,
And the faint torch that evening bore,
In science and in saintly lore,
Reading the stars and signs of rain,
Noting each tree and herb and grain;
Each bird that flutters through the leaves,
Each beast, each fish that green lake cleaves,
The curious deeds Devotion paints
In missals and in lives of saints,
And every olden subtle trick
Of grammar, logic, rhetoric. 
But most on chivalry I turned
A torrent eagerness, and burned
To hear of wrong repaired, or read
The working of some famous deed,
Like those I dreamt that I could do
When what I set myself was through: 
Vexed lest the inward clock of fate
That ticked “Too soon!” might tick “Too late!”
But now that dial points the hour
When I must test my gathered power,
And leave my books and leave my dreams
Of steeds and towers and knightly themes,
Of tourney gay and woodland quest,
Of Perceval and Perceforest,
Of Richard, Arthur, Charlemain,
Amadis and the Cid of Spain—­
Must leave them all and seek alone
Some grand adventure of my own.

Cloud
Yet if you seek and cannot find
Or fail to work what you designed,
Be it but as the steadfast sun
Who bright or dim his course doth run,
And last doth reach as far a spot
Whether he seems to shine or not.

Randolph
The height, the fynial of my aim
Is to be worthy of her name.

Cloud
You mortals are a curious race—­
More whirled by passions, hot in chase
Of passions, than myself am whirled
When tempests tug me o’er the world;
I cannot understand your ways. 
We clouds live our divinest days
Beneath great sunny depths of sky,
High above all that you think high,
Drifting through sunset’s surf of gold,
Dawn-lakes and moonlight’s clear waves cold,
In realms so distant, chill and lone,
That Love, impatient, leaves the throne
To meditative Amity.

Randolph
So would my guardian have it be,
So flowed his constant voice to me,
Of those to make me one, he sought,
Who watch from mountain towers of thought,
Or wandering into paths apart
Pursue the lonely star of art.