AS one who having wandered all night long <br />In a perplexed forest, comes at length <br />In the first hours, about the matin song, <br />And when the sun uprises in his strength, <br />To the fringed margin of the wood, and sees, <br />Gazing afar before him, many a mile <br />Of falling country, many fields and trees, <br />And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean's smile: <br /> <br />I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze: <br />I, liberated, look abroad on life, <br />Love, and distress, and dusty travelling ways, <br />The steersman's helm, the surgeon's helpful knife, <br />On the lone ploughman's earth-upturning share, <br />The revelry of cities and the sound <br />Of seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air, <br />And of the circling earth the unsupported round: <br /> <br />I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore; <br />And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands <br />In adoration, cry aloud and soar <br />In spirit, high above the supine lands <br />And the low caves of mortal things, and flee <br />To the last fields of the universe untrod, <br />Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea, <br />And the contented soul is all alone with God.<br /><br />Robert Louis Stevenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-one-who-having-wandered-all-night-long/
