Where did they end,—those pathways wild and lone

Where

Through the dark forest? Lay some shore unknown

Beyond them, where the wind first taught the trees

The sweet sad voices of the murmuring seas?

Oh, whither did they call? The long arcades

Led ever to remoter, dimmer shades;

And from the farthest crest a pathway dipped

Down to some lonelier aisle or darker crypt.{34}

{34}

Dear were the open fields to us, and dear

The homely path, the sound of human cheer;

But ’twas the way no foot of man had worn,

The forest’s undiscoverable bourne,

That made our world so wide, its end so far:

And when, in the evening through the trees, a star

Shone o’er the darkening solitudes, it seemed

Nearer than those long quests of which we dreamed.

One day we wandered farther than before

Through leafy maze and dusky corridor

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