University of Virginia Library

THE INTERLOCUTORY DISCOURSE

Forth on our quest, some years agone, we set:
How fares it with us? If the end is yet,
Or if we still must follow otherwhere,
Straightway in brief to each let each declare.
For me, I pause a moment on the road
To mark how far is still the heart's abode.
As one, towards morning-tide, a dream recalls
While heavy sleep as yet his sense enthrals,
I look on those long spaces over-past,
And forward, dreaming if the trance will last,
While round me move the deeper dreamers here.
Perchance for us the waking time is near
Since one advantage over these have we,
Who know how sleep expands her sorcery,
While others in their spell such comfort take
As comes to those who hold they truly wake.
Perchance we felt it from the first—who knows?—
When that bestirr'd to trouble our repose,
The grand debate which did our quest begin—
Life, and the ways of life, and how therein
Best might ambition and its force applied
Insure our getting on before we died.
In either case, whate'er the cost or pain,
Resolved were we to triumph, to attain;
And yet, despite this effort of the will,
Much, it would seem, remains to tax our skill...
Set forth the subject as we view'd it then—
That life one duty has imposed on men:
How to get on—the lesson all must learn;
By open ways if possible to earn
Their high success, if not by ways unknown.
All ends worth seeking, say, from star to stone,
We pass'd in thought before us, ere our choice
Was made; but those which earthly hearts rejoice
Look'd scarcely worth life's dedicated span,
Nor did some greater aims pursued by man
Seem likely to avail him in the end:
Such signal triumphs as on art attend;
The crowns in paths of progress seized at times;
The laurel wreaths of rhymers and their rhymes;
Devotion's guerdon for a country's weal:
Due lauds we gave them, owning their appeal,
But did with blessing true their claim dismiss.
Full long we ponder'd, weighing that with this,
Nor did the humbler walks of life disdain;
But in the end we found that trades were vain,
And all the crowded ways where men compete;
That e'en the daily bread which all must eat
'Twere better, if it might be, to forego
Than daily bread for our sole object know;
That wealth and luxury and social place,
And seats among the mighty of the race,
May in themselves be honourable things,
But insufficient for ambition's wings.
How, therefore, truly to get on? said we;
Then paused a moment, since it seem'd to be
No small achievement that, with hearts content,
We could from public interests dissent
And from all competitions stand aside.
But presently we found that ere he died
Each son of man saw vanity in these,
And now, as then, the saint their contact flees.
What true end, therefore, over and before
All these remains?—O knowledge, evermore
Follow'd and worshipp'd! O ye lights of mind!
Ye secrets of the deeps all deeps behind!
Ye hidden forces! Man—his height, his deep—
Ways of the waking world and world asleep—
Praise we invoked on all who these pursued;
For us we left them to their solitude:
How therefore truly to get on? we said.
And so it came to pass our souls were fed
With glimpses of a causeway seldom trod,
When something told us that our end was God.
Thereat we blest, as paths already tried,
The grand old faiths, but put their claims aside,
And forth upon our varied course we went—
What weary days—on God's attainment bent!
Of many men did you perchance inquire,
To saint and sage spurr'd on by one desire,
And over all the world did learn of all.
But whatsoever did your days befall,
The circle of that world has brought you round
Unto the starting point—and how much found?
How much, how little? ... I inquired of none—
Of One alone by One to seek the One,
For me at least avail'd. Absorb'd in mind,
By blessed contemplation's ruling kind,
From sleep of midnight, watch of noon and dawn
I sought the vision out of these withdrawn;
And me the circle of the deeps has brought
Back to the starting point—but how much taught?
Leastways one lesson both for me and you—
Ours is the way of the attainment true;
No better end than that we two divine
Has shone upon your pathway or on mine,
All paths attempting where all lights have shone,
And ours the only way for getting on.
So forward, therefore; somewhere lurks the end:
All in good time—His time—that's best, my friend!