A STATESMAN racked by a torn world's affairs
Sought solace by the sea but found his cares
Increased, for when he fixed his mental gaze
On alien shores, half pictured through the haze,
The waters seemed aroused to very speech:
"We separate the nations each from each."
To him by fate a mariner was sent
Who scanned the deep with manifest content.
"Shipmates of mine serve yonder," ventured he,
"God bless the ocean joining them and me."
Whereat the statesman marvelled to behold
A babe in worldly lore the truth unfold:
That things made visible have ever been
But shadows pointing to a realm unseen
Whose law "Transfigure by a change of view"
Gives man his freedom to make all things new.
There's a voice
... the breeze has spoken strangers, with a stirring tale to tell,
And a thousand eager voices flung the challenge out to sea:
"Come they hither in the old way, in the only way that's free?"
And the flying Breeze called softly: "In the old way . . ."
