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| THERE is no change upon the deep; | |
| Each day they see the prospect wide | |
| Of yesterday: the same waves leap: | |
| The same pale clouds the distance hide, | |
| Or shaped to mountain-peaks their hopes of land deride. | 5 |
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| On, and still on, the soft winds bear | |
| The rocking vessel, and the main | |
| That is so pitiless and so fair, | |
| Seems like a billowy, boundless plain | |
| Where one might sail, and sail, and ever sail in vain. | 10 |
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| Famine is there with haggard cheek, | |
| And Fever stares from hollow eyes; | |
| And sullen murmurs rise, that speak | |
| Curses on him whose mad emprise | |
| Has lured men from their homes to die ’neath alien skies. | 15 |
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| But he, the captain, he is calm: | |
| His glance compels the mutineer: | |
| In fainting hearts he pours the balm | |
| Of sympathy and lofty cheer: | |
| ‘Courage, a few more leagues will prove the earth a sphere. | 20 |
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| ‘The world is round: there is an end: | |
| We do not vainly toil and roam: | |
| The kiss of wife, the clasp of friend, | |
| The fountains and the vines of home | |
| Wait us beyond the cloud, beyond the edge of foam. | 25 |
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