Chapter XXI

And wilt thou never feel the hurrying tide
Of virile blood pulse quick along thy veins,
And stand magnificent in manly pride,
And know a man’s fierce joys and glorious pains?

Strong vital thrills that lift the human up,
Transfigured, rapt, to mix with the divine;
Beats of the music, foamings of the cup,
Filled to the splendid brim with youth’s new wine—

These wilt thou never taste—not taste the bliss
Of our mere being, mere recurrent breath,
Mere oneness with the life in all that is,
The cosmic energies that laugh at death—

Not know the moments when some god in us
Seems to exalt and crown our manhood thus?