Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/142

128 That struck him, and upstartled when it struck, The vision, the old thought in him. There was A lack, and one that wrenched him; but it was Not that—not that. There was a present sense Of something indeterminably near— The soul-clutch of a prescient emptiness That would not be foreboding. And if not, What then?—or was it anything at all? Yes, it was something—it was everything— But what was everything? or anything?

Tired of time, bewildered, he sat down; But in his chair he kept on wondering That he should feel so desolately strange And yet—for all he knew that he had lost More of the world than most men ever win— So curiously calm. And he was left Unanswered and unsatisfied: there came No clearer meaning to him than had come Before; the old abstraction was the best That he could find, the farthest he could go; To that was no beginning and no end— No end that he could reach. So he must learn To live the surest and the largest life Attainable in him, would he divine The meaning of the dream and of the words That he had written, without knowing why,