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University of Virginia Library

Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge

Lodge, George Cabot (1873-1909)

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THE GREAT ADVENTURE

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[I Pride, power and substance of created things]

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[III Life gives the pass-key of his treasure-house]

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[IV Unspeakable are the felicities]

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[V We trod into the starlight, into the night]

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[VI Twilight of Truth's unfettered wanderings]

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[VIII Powerful, patient, vast serenity ]

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[IX Shall we return, return once more and stand ]

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[X There may we learn at daybreak and nightfall, ]

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[XI We loved too perfectly for praise ]

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[XII We loved the illimitable night ]

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[XIII We found a symbol and significance ]

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[XIV How often in the tranquil evenings ]

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[XV O South-wind, silvered by the crescent moon ]

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[XVI In some clear, crystalline, calm-murmuring ]

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XVII ODYSSEUS

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[XX In Time's cathedral Memory, like a ghost]

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[XXI O Memory, Mistress of the heart's despair]

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[XXII. Days that have been and nevermore shall be]

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XXIII QUESTIONS

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[XXV Thus were our lives resolved! “The Dawn,” we said]

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THE SOUL'S INHERITANCE AND OTHER POEMS

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XVII
ODYSSEUS

He strove with Gods and men in equal mood
Of great endurance: not alone his hands
Wrought in wild seas and laboured in strange lands,
And not alone his patient strength withstood
The clashing cliffs and Circe's perilous sands:
Eager of some imperishable good
He drave new pathways thro' the trackless flood
Foreguarded, fearless, free from Fate's commands.
How shall our faith discern the truth he sought?
We too must watch and wander till our eyes,
Turned sky-ward from the topmost tower of thought,
Haply shall find the star that marked his goal,
The watch-fire of transcendent liberties
Lighting the endless spaces of the soul.