Knowing her the Ever-new,
     And themselves the kin o’ the rose. 
     Life, the chisel, axe and sword,
     Wield who have her depths explored: 
     Life, the dream, shall be their robe
     Large as air about the globe;
     Life, the question, hear its cry
     Echoed with concordant Why;
     Life, the small self-dragon ramped,
     Thrill for service to be stamped. 
     Ay, and over every height
     Life for them shall wave a wand: 
     That, the last, where sits affright,
     Homely shows the stream beyond. 
     Love the light and be its lynx,
     You will track her and attain;
     Read her as no cruel Sphinx
     In the woods of Westermain,
     Daily fresh the woods are ranged;
     Glooms which otherwhere appal,
     Sounded:  here, their worths exchanged
     Urban joins with pastoral: 
     Little lost, save what may drop
     Husk-like, and the mind preserves. 
     Natural overgrowths they lop,
     Yet from nature neither swerves,
     Trained or savage:  for this cause: 
     Of our Earth they ply the laws,
     Have in Earth their feeding root,
     Mind of man and bent of brute. 
     Hear that song; both wild and ruled. 
     Hear it:  is it wail or mirth? 
     Ordered, bubbled, quite unschooled? 
     None, and all:  it springs of Earth. 
     O but hear it! ’tis the mind;
     Mind that with deep Earth unites,
     Round the solid trunk to wind
     Rings of clasping parasites. 
     Music have you there to feed
     Simplest and most soaring need. 
     Free to wind, and in desire
     Winding, they to her attached
     Feel the trunk a spring of fire,
     And ascend to heights unmatched,
     Whence the tidal world is viewed
     As a sea of windy wheat,
     Momently black, barren, rude;
     Golden-brown, for harvest meet,
     Dragon-reaped from folly-sown;
     Bride-like to the sickle-blade: 
     Quick it varies, while the moan,
     Moan of a sad creature strayed,
     Chiefly is its voice.  So flesh
     Conjures tempest-flails to thresh
     Good from worthless.  Some clear lamps
     Light it; more of dead marsh-damps. 
     Monster is it still, and blind,
     Fit but to be led by Pain. 
     Glance we at the paths behind,
     Fruitful sight has Westermain. 
     There we laboured, and in turn
     Forward our blown lamps discern,
     As you see on the dark deep
     Far the loftier billows leap,
     Foam for beacon bear. 
     Hither, hither, if you will,
     Drink instruction, or instil,
     Run the woods like vernal sap,
     Crying, hail to luminousness! 
     But have care. 
     In yourself may lurk the trap: 
     On conditions they caress. 
     Here you meet the light invoked
     Here is never secret