Jack and Joan, they think no ill,
But loving live, and merry still:
Do their weekdays’ work and pray
Devoutly on the holy day;
Skip and trip it on the green,
And help to choose the Summer Queen;
Lash out at a country feast
Their silver penny with the best.

Well can they judge of nappy ale,
And tell at large a winter tale;
Climb up to the apple-loft,
And turn the crabs till they be soft.
Tib is all the father’s joy,
And little Tom the mother’s boy:
All their pleasure is content,
And care to pay their yearly rent.

Joan can call by name her cows,
And deck her windows with green boughs;
She can wreaths and tussies make,
And trim with plums a bridal cake.
Jack knows what brings gain or loss,
And his long flail can stoutly toss,
Make the hedge which others break,
And ever thinks what he does speak.

Now, you courtly dames and knights,
That study only strange delights,
Though you scorn the homespun gray,
And revel in your rich array,
Though your tongues dissemble deep,
And can your heads from danger keep;
Yet, for all your pomp and train,
Securer lives the silly swain.

There is a quest that calls me,
In nights when I am lone,
The need to ride where the ways divide
The Known from the Unknown.
I mount what thought is near me
And soon I reach the place,
The tenuous rim where the Seen grown dim
And the Sightless hides its face.

I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the sea,
I have ridden the moon and stars.
I have set my feet in the stirrup seat
Of a comet coursing Mars.
And everywhere
Through the earth and air
My thought speeds, lightning-shod,
It comes to a place where checking pace
It cries, 'Beyond lies God!'

It calls me out of the darkness,
It calls me out of sleep,
'Ride! ride! for you must, to the end of Dust!'
It bids—and on I sweep
To the wide outposts of Being,
Where there is Gulf alone—
And through a Vast that was never passed
I listen for Life's tone.

I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the night,
I have ridden the ghosts that flee
From the vaults of death like a chilling breath
Over eternity.
And everywhere
Is the world laid bare—
Ether and star and clod—
Until I wind to its brink and find
But the cry, 'Beyond lies God!'

It calls me and ever calls me!
And vainly I reply,
'Fools only ride where the ways divide
What Is from the Whence and Why!'
I am lifted into the saddle
Of thoughts too strong to tame,
And down the deeps and over the steeps
I find…ever the Same.

I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the stars,
I have ridden the force that flies
With far intent through the firmament
And each to each allies.
And everywhere
That a thought may dare
To gallop, mine has trod—
Only to stand at last on the strand
Where just beyond lies God.