Man prayed his way up from the beast And drove his will with love and pain And each slow failing trial increased His infinitesimal gain. We cannot know if dawning came Upon a snow-wrapped solitude, Or as a spirit-bearing flame Through a dark wood. Perhaps on the appointed day, When great trees fanned the golden air, The wild thing slept, from joyous play, With visions vast and fair. While with the young at her warm breast, Their helplessness beneath her eyes, Some mother-creature sudden guessed At human love; surmise Of the long struggle for the right Against the sum of human ills, Then turned her eyes to a far light Beyond the shadowed hills. Each found, god-hid, a strange belief In something always past the goal That gave them love and work and grief To find a soul. They never saw the stony climb Beyond the foothills of the day, Nor knew they pledged eternal time Unto the Way! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WALT WHITMAN by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE WANTS OF MAN by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS TO A LITTLE INVISIBLE BEING WHO IS EXPECTED SOON TO BECOME VISIBLE by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD MORNING IN CAMP by HERBERT BASHFORD THE PHILOSOPHER by EMILY JANE BRONTE HASTE NOT! REST NOT! by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE IN HOSPITAL: 2. WAITING by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY |