University of Virginia Library

[I
Cut loose! Hoist sail! Leave the familiar shores]

Cut loose! Hoist sail! Leave the familiar shores
Of life! Drive out on love's enormous wind
Far from the safe small pieties and blind
Tangles of conscience! O set wide the doors
And throw the strong arms open utterly!
Go forth reckless with faith and unresigned,
Thus only seeking shall you surely find
The peril and rapture of true liberty!
Thus only shall divine discoveries
Stretch the vague margins of the conscious soul
And fire the peaks of more inclusive skies;
Thus may we burst the self-created bond
Of sordid fears and hear life's surges roll
On shores of truth that always lie beyond!