O YE joys that none have chanced on!
O ye goals that none have sought!
O ye gulfs of vacant ether
Where no starshine has been wrought!--
Do ye hold the chance among you
Of a perfect, perfect thought?

Of a thought that is a meaning
For the worlds and all their ways,
For the dawning and the dying
Of the dumb and actual days,
For the listless depth of doing
That yet ceases not, nor stays?

Will a harvest e'er be gathered
Out of forces all broadcast?
Does there lie in any future
The redemption of a past?
Can the kernel of existence
Show its worthiness at last?

O Unsought! Unseen! Undreamt of!
Hold your secret as ye may,
Men are here upon the earth-ball
With a will to find their way,
And there comes to will fulfilment,
Though the total word be 'Nay.'

There shall be a meek defiance
In the teeth of mystery hurled;
There shall be a human purpose
Fitly to the morrow curled;
Though the heat and cold of ages
Wipe the man-print off the world;

Ere he vanish he will please him
With the earth he walks upon;
Ere he perish he will ease him
Of the dread of living done;
Ere the final fate engulf him,
All his victory shall be won.

O ye joys that none have chanced on!
O ye goals that none have sought!
Is there not a hope among you
Of an all-consoling thought?
Shall not man create a saneness
Who was bred for blankest nought?

See, the trees succeed a little
If success be juicy fruit,
And not always has the lily
E'en a canker at the root;
The sport of fate is kind anon,
And then the chances shoot.

And how, when chances grown aware
Have woven them to will,
To find the garden corner
Where the wind is seldom chill,
To long for fruit, to love the flower,
To know, and then to till.

Ay, how? When helplessness is death,
And love is all of bliss,
Shall not the will-work of the world
Wrench round some fates remiss?
And where the iron whole yields not,
Yield first, to win a kiss?