<h2><SPAN name="page85"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>THE UNATTAINED</h2>
<p class="poetry">A vision beauteous as the morn,<br/>
With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming,<br/>
Slow glided o’er a field late shorn<br/>
Where walked a poet idly dreaming.<br/>
He saw her, and joy lit his face,<br/>
“Oh, vanish not at human speaking,”<br/>
He cried, “thou form of magic grace,<br/>
Thou art the poem I am seeking.</p>
<p class="poetry">“I’ve sought thee long! I
claim thee now—<br/>
My thought embodied, living, real.”<br/>
She shook the tresses from her brow.<br/>
“Nay, nay!” she said, “I am
ideal.<br/>
I am the phantom of desire—<br/>
The spirit of all great endeavour,<br/>
I am the voice that says, ‘Come higher,’<br/>
That calls men up and up for ever.</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page86"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
86</span>“’Tis not alone thy thought supreme<br/>
That here upon thy path has risen;<br/>
I am the artist’s highest dream,<br/>
The ray of light he cannot prison.<br/>
I am the sweet ecstatic note<br/>
Than all glad music gladder, clearer,<br/>
That trembles in the singer’s throat,<br/>
And dies without a human hearer.</p>
<p class="poetry">“I am the greater, better yield,<br/>
That leads and cheers thy farmer neighbour,<br/>
For me he bravely tills the field<br/>
And whistles gaily at his labour.<br/>
Not thou alone, O poet soul,<br/>
Dost seek me through an endless morrow,<br/>
But to the toiling, hoping whole<br/>
I am at once the hope and sorrow.</p>
<p class="poetry">“The spirit of the unattained,<br/>
I am to those who seek to name me,<br/>
A good desired but never gained:<br/>
All shall pursue, but none shall claim
me.”</p>
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