Classic Poem

A great light was passed to me,
From the infinite before passed to me in trust for the infinite beyond —
To me, the chosen bearer of the pledges of the past to the fulfilments of the future:
To me, the humble proud instrument of the eternities for a moment charged to carry the cross:
The whole of man reaching to the whole of man through me,
For a mere snatch of time the servant of one age and the master of the next, reaching through me,
In the great light that surged and swept over my ecstatic soul, reaching through me.

A great light was passed to me:
It was the mother and father light of the ages reprocreant through my blood,
It was the husbanding torch of birthdreams kept fed in my goodwill
Was I to make too little of the seeddrops of the fathers?
Was I to turn my eyes away and let the light go out?
I brushed all obstructions from my doorsill and stepped into the road:
No matter what hell would say or heaven would say I was off: hurrah, I was off!
And though so many cried to me I did not turn back,
And though I was very sorrowful having to leave so many friends behind, I did not turn back,
And though the ground was rough and I was overtaken by fierce storms, I did not turn back,
And though I was misunderstood and my oldtime companions distrusted me, I did not turn back,
For when the soul is once started on the soul's journey it can never turn back.

Who are you, any one, who can remain unmoved when the light breaks upon you?
Who can say it does not concern him — who can say it is just as well not to see as to see?
Who can ever be the same child or woman or man again after the day has broken?
Who can admit there is anything else in the world after this has come to the world?
Dear love, you woman or you man, known or unknown, this light has come to the world through you as much as through any other:
Do you not feel it possessing you? do you not feel it visiting you with mad vehemence?
Do you not feel it flowing, crowding, pushing, into every corner of your being?
Is there any nook of you left vacant after its electric flood has swept into you?
Can you now go on with your old life as if nothing had happened?
God! everything has happened in this flash of revelation:
The whole universe has happened,
All of love in all of life has happened,
All your debt to all the past has happened,
All your forgotten kinship to the people has happened,
And the terrible thirst for justice has happened,
And all sad things have happened in gladness at last,
And all things out of place have happened in place at last,
And all old enmity has happened in friendship at last,
And the mistakes of judgment have happened in restitution,
And the uncertainty about the future has happened in certainty,
And the soul is wholly satisfied, for the soul has happened after many burials of the soul.

I do not wait to see where others go, I go on my own account:
I go — in the crowd if the crowd goes, alone if the crowd holds back:
There is much to keep me, there is more to send me on
Do not get in my way, do not attempt to block my passage:
I must go — for life or death must go, for love or hate:
Out of my way: hands off: damn you, let go!
I do not say farewell — I say: Till tomorrow!

A great light was passed to me.