It winds along the headlands
Above the open sea-
The lonely moorland footpath
That leads to Sankoty.
–
The crooning sea spreads sailless
And gray to the world’s rim,
Where hang the reeking fog-banks
Primordial and dim.
–
There fret the ceaseless currents,
And the eternal tide
Chafes over hidden shallows
Where the white horses ride.
–
The wistful fragrant moorlands
Whose smile bids panic cease,
Lie treeless and cloud-shadowed
In grave and lonely peace.
–
Across their flowering bosom,
From the far end of day
Blow clean the great soft moor-winds
All sweet with rose and bay.
–
A world as large and simple
As first emerged for man,
Cleared for the human drama,
Before the play began.
–
O well the soul must treasure
The calm that sets it free-
The vast and tender skyline,
The sea-turn’s wizardry,
–
Solace of swaying grasses,
The friendship of sweet-fern-
And in the world’s confusion
Remembering, must yearn
–
To tread the moorland footpath
That leads to Sankoty,
Hearing the field-larks shrilling
Beside the sailless sea.
– The Path to Sankoty by: William Bliss Carman