The weary pilgrim oft doth seek to know
How far he's come, how far he has to go.
Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million of them walking the earth openly at noontide; some half hundred have vanished from it, some half hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch tick one.
Truth dwells in gulphs, whose deeps hide shades so rich
That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch,
More darke than Nature made her and requires
(To cleare her tough mists) heaven's great fire of fires
To wrestle with those heaven-strong mysteries.
I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A central self which feels and is;
A cry between the silences;
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life;
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast
Into the future from the past.
Where wert thou, Soul, ere yet my body born
Became thy dwelling-place? Didst thou on earth
Or in the clouds, await this body's birth,
Or by what chance upon that winter's morn
Didst thou this body find, a babe forlorn ?
Didst thou in sorrow enter, or in mirth?
Or for a jest, perchance, to try its worth
Thou tookest flesh, ne'er from it to be torn.