One brother's vessel vanished
From the indefinite sea.
Another asked the King leave,
By faith and custom's fiat,
To go and seek his brother
Through boundless seas and darkest mist.

Time passed. Neither one nor the other
Returned from the deep and distant ocean,
Unknown to the nation on whom
It laid the enigma it had made.
Then a third beseeched the King
To search for both. The King refused.

*

Servants hear him pass
The manor house as if enchained.
And, when seen, a fevered figure
With anguished eyes
Stares bitterly ahead
Into the forbidden blue beyond.

Two brothers who share our Name, Lord,
The Power and the Glory,
Both strove in the sea of ages
Toward your agelessness;
And with them went that part of us
Which in spirit makes heroes possible.

From our wretched prison house
We ache to seek our heroes:
It's the search for who we are
Far within us; in fevered yearning
We lift our hands to God.

But God forbids our going hence.