Our Daily Bread

We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell

To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet;

There have been men who sank down into Hell

  In some suburban street,

And some there are that in their daily walks

Have met archangels fresh from sight of God,

Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks

  Long files of faerie trod.

Often me too the Living voices call

In many a vulgar and habitual place,

I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall,

  I see a strange god’s face.

And some day this work will work upon me so

I shall arise and leave both friends and home

And over many lands a pilgrim go

  Through alien woods and foam,

Seeking the last steep edges of the earth

Whence I may leap into that gulf of light

Wherein, before my narrowing Self had birth,

  Part of me lived aright.