An ideal is more real than the sun
when it’s up in the cup of the sky
as it pours through the gateway of day
when the shroud-parting clouds drift away.

Who can say such a gift is not worth more than earth
when it shows in the land all its gold
as it glows for his hand who began with a dream,
who now stands in a stream that is brighter than fire
with his worldly desire?

It is here, it is his, he is filled up with bliss
And his eyes are as skies are when nothing’s amiss,
for a life without strife is alive in his mind
like a fiery blind kiss that is pressed on his lips
by a lover self-blessed by a joy full-confessed.

Dark of hair, smooth of skin, gold of spirit to win,
goes from her into him like the words of a hymn,
much as birds of the dawn, flying on with their might,
signal end of the night in his sun-seeking sight
where in him is beginning of right.

It is rare, it is daring, beyond all comparing,
this ideal so deep/real that he cannot deny it,
or plan not to live it, but to take it and try it
is to say it is day when the sun’s on its way,
and to break from the fate of the past is to cast
all of its badness and madness away!

To its nurture we give all the future we live;
in ideals that are real we are bound.
They who say we are fools—we go not to their schools,
but are fetterless, free, and self-wound,
for the high road we take is no load that will break us
as we pass with our class past the teachers of preaching.

Yea! we’re beyond all their reaching!
where reality’s right and the truth of man’s seeking’s
the sole thing in sight!