| |
| OVER the sea our galleys went, | |
| With cleaving prows in order brave, | |
| To a speeding wind and a bounding wave— | |
| A gallant armament: | |
| Each bark built out of a forest-tree, | 5 |
| Left leafy and rough as first it grew, | |
| And nail’d all over the gaping sides, | |
| Within and without, with black-bull hides, | |
| Seeth’d in fat and suppled in flame, | |
| To bear the playful billow’s game; | 10 |
| So each good ship was rude to see, | |
| Rude and bare to the outward view, | |
| But each upbore a stately tent; | |
| Where cedar-pales in scented row | |
| Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine: | 15 |
| And an awning droop’d the mast below, | |
| In fold on fold of the purple fine, | |
| That neither noontide, nor star-shine, | |
| Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, | |
| Might pierce the regal tenement. | 20 |
| When the sun dawn’d oh, gay and glad | |
| We set the sail and plied the oar; | |
| But when the night-wind blew like breathe, | |
| For joy of one day’s voyage more, | |
| We sang together on the wide sea, | 25 |
| Like men at peace on a peaceful shore; | |
| Each sail was loos’d to the wind so free, | |
| Each helm made sure by the twilight star, | |
| And in a sleep as calm as death, | |
| We, the strangers from afar, | 30 |
| Lay stretch’d along, each weary crew | |
| In a circle round its wondrous tent, | |
| Whence gleam’d soft light and curl’d rich scent, | |
| And, with light and perfume, music too: | |
| So the stars wheel’d round, and the darkness past, | 35 |
| And at morn we started beside the mast, | |
| And still each ship was sailing fast! | |
| |
| One morn, the land appear’d!—a speck | |
| Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky— | |
| Avoid it, cried our pilot, check | 40 |
| The shout, restrain the longing eye! | |
| But the heaving sea was black behind | |
| For many a might and many a day, | |
| And land, though but a rock, drew nigh; | |
| So we broke the cedar pales away, | 45 |
| Let the purple awning flap in the wind, | |
| And a statue bright was on every deck! | |
| We shouted, every man of us, | |
| And steer’d right into the harbor thus, | |
| With pomp and pæan glorious. | 50 |
| |
| An hundred shapes of lucid stone! | |
| All day we built a shrine for each— | |
| A shrine of rock for every one— | |
| Nor paus’d we till in the westering sun | |
| We sate together on the beach | 55 |
| To sing, because our task was done; | |
| When lo! what shouts and merry songs! | |
| What raft comes loaded with its throngs | |
| Of gentle islanders? | |
| “The isles are just at hand,” they cried; | 60 |
| “Like cloudlets faint at even sleeping, | |
| Our temple-gates are open’d wide, | |
| Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping | |
| For the lucid shapes you bring”—they cried. | |
| Oh, then we awoke with sudden start | 65 |
| From our deep dream; we knew, too late, | |
| How bare the rock, how desolate, | |
| To which we had flung our precious freight: | |
| Yet we call’d out—“Depart! | |
| Our gifts, once given, must here abide: | 70 |
| Our work is done; we have no heart | |
| To mar our work, though vain”—we cried. | |
| |
