Ask no more: 'tis much, 'tis much!
Down the road the day-star calls;
Touched with change in the wide heavens, like a leaf the
frost winds touch,
Flames the failing moon a moment, ere it shrivels white and falls;
Hid aloft, a wild throat holdeth sweet and sweeter intervals.
Leave him still to ease in song
Half his little heart's unrest:
Speech is his, but we may journey toward the life for which we long.
God, who gives the bird its anguish, maketh nothing manifest,
But upon our lifted foreheads pours the boon of endless quest.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Do not be alarmed if you find this a little hard to understand. It is
expressed in rather figurative language, and one has to study it to get
its meaning. The poem is about those people who look forward constantly
to something better, and feel that they must always be pressing forward
at any cost. Who is represented as speaking? What sort of life are the
travelers leaving behind them? Why do they feel a keen distress? What is
the "whole" that they are striving to see? What is their "sacred
hunger"? Why is it "dearer" than the feasting of those who stay at home?
Notice how the third stanza reminds one of _Gloucester Moors_. Look up
the word _sidereal_: Can you tell what it means here? "Lives and lives
behind us" means _a long time ago_; you will perhaps have to ask your
teacher for its deeper meaning. Do the travelers know where they are
going? Why do they set forth? Note the description of the dawn in the
fifth stanza.
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