These things alone endure; <br />'They are the solid facts,' that we may grasp, <br />Leading us on and upward if we clasp <br />And hold them firm and sure. <br /> <br />In a wise fable old, <br />A hero sought a god who could at will <br />Assume all figures, and the hero still <br />Loosed not his steadfast hold, <br /> <br />For image foul or fair, <br />For soft-eyed nymph, who wept with pain and shame, <br />For threatening fiend or loathsome beast or flame, <br />For menace or for prayer. <br /> <br />Until the god, outbraved, <br />Took his own shape divine; not wrathfully, <br />But wondering, to the hero gave reply, <br />The knowledge that he craved. <br /> <br />We seize the god in youth; <br />All forms conspire to make us loose our grasp,— <br />Ambition, folly, gain,— till we unclasp <br />From the embrace of truth. <br /> <br />We grow more wise, we say, <br />And work for worldly ends and mock our dream, <br />Alas! while all life's glory and its gleam, <br />With that have fled away. <br /> <br />If thereto we had clung <br />Through change and peril, fire and night and storm, <br />Till it assumed its proper, godlike form, <br />We might at last have wrung <br /> <br />An answer to our cries— <br />A brave response to our most valiant hope. <br />Unto the light of day this word might ope <br />A million mysteries. <br /> <br />O'er each man's brow I see <br />The bright star of his genius shining clear; <br />It seeks to guide him to a nobler sphere, <br />Above earth's vanity. <br /> <br />Up to pure height of snow, <br />Its beckoning ray still leads him on and on; <br />To those who follow, lo, itself comes down <br />And crowns at length their brow. <br /> <br />The nimbus still doth gleam <br />On these the heroes, sages of the earth, <br />The few who found, in life of any worth, <br />Only their loftiest dream.<br /><br />Emma Lazarus<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/reality-170/
