Alone You Passed

Alone you passed beyond the Golden Gate,
Toward the red Hesperus o’er the western seas
To broad-browed idols of the Japanese—
But their grim lips were silent where they sate;
Alone I sailed earth’s other path of fate,
Out toward the morning star where Egypt is,
Where the Sphinx guards her bleak eternities—
But I returned, like you, forlorn and late;

Then wandering inland from each divided coast
Across the multitudinous continent,
Strangers by hill and stream without an aim,
We met even in the hour we doubted most,
And each in each achieved the great Event—
The oracle, the sacrificial flame.

by William Ellery Leonard