Which starred with many a mystic sign,
Fell as o’er sunlit ruby glowing: 
His light flew o’er the waves afar
In ruddy ripples on each bar
Along the spiral pathways flowing.

It was a crystal boat that chased
The light along the watery waste,
Till caught amid the surges hoary
The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.

Oh, never such a glory was: 
The pale moon shot it through and through
With light of lilac, white and blue: 
And there mid many a fairy hue
Of pearl and pink and amethyst,
Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams
And wove around a wonder-mist.

The Pilot lifted beckoning hands;
Silent I went with deep amaze
To know why came this Beam of Light
So far along the ocean ways
Out of the vast and shadowy night.

“Make haste, make haste!” he cried.  “Away! 
A thousand ages now are gone. 
Yet thou and I ere night be sped
Will reck no more of eve or dawn.”

Swift as the swallow to its nest
I leaped:  my body dropt right down: 
A silver star I rose and flew. 
A flame burned golden at his breast: 
I entered at the heart and knew
My Brother-Self who roams the deep,
Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.

The ruby body wrapped us round
As twain in one:  we left behind
The league-long murmur of the shore
And fleeted swifter than the wind.

The distance rushed upon the bark: 
We neared unto the mystic isles: 
The heavenly city we could mark,
Its mountain light, its jewel dark,
Its pinnacles and starry piles.

The glory brightened:  “Do not fear;
For we are real, though what seems
So proudly built above the waves
Is but one mighty spirit’s dreams.

“Our Father’s house hath many fanes;
Yet enter not and worship not,
For thought but follows after thought
Till last consuming self it wanes.

“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings
Its glamour o’er the light of day: 
A music in the sunlight sings
To call the dreamy hearts away
Their mighty hopes to ease awhile: 
We will not go the way of them: 
The chant makes drowsy those who seek
The sceptre and the diadem.

“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws
Its magic round us all the night;
What things the heart would be, it sees
And chases them in endless flight. 
Or coiled in phantom visions there
It builds within the halls of fire;
Its dreams flash like the peacock’s wing
And glow with sun-hues of desire. 
We will not follow in their ways
Nor heed the lure of fay or elf,
But in the ending of our days
Rest in the high Ancestral Self.”

The boat of crystal touched the shore,
Then melted flamelike from our eyes,
As in the twilight drops the sun
Withdrawing rays of paradise.

We hurried under arched aisles
That far above in heaven withdrawn
With cloudy pillars stormed the night,
Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.