| |
| 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, | |
| Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, | |
| To bear the playful billows’ 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, O, gay and glad | |
| We set the sail and plied the oar; | |
| But when the night-wind blew like breath, | |
| 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 loosed to the wind so free, | |
| Each helm made sure by the twilight star, | |
| And in a sleep as calm as death, | |
| We, the voyagers 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 pass’d, | 35 |
| And at morn we started beside the mast, | |
| And still each ship was sailing fast! | |
| |
| Now, one morn, land appear’d—a speck | |
| Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky— | |
| ‘Avoid it,’ cried our pilot, ‘check | 40 |
| The shout, restrain the eager eye!’ | |
| But the heaving sea was black behind | |
| For many a night 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 harbour thus, | |
| With pomp and pæan glorious. | 50 |
| A hundred shapes of lucid stone! | |
| All day we built its shrine for each, | |
| A shrine of rock for every one, | |
| Nor paused till in the westering sun | |
| We sat together on the beach | 55 |
| To sing because our task was done; | |
| When lo! what shouts and merry songs! | |
| What laughter all the distance stirs! | |
| A loaded raft with happy throngs | |
| Of gentle islanders! | 60 |
| ‘Our isles are just at hand,’ they cried, | |
| ‘Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping; | |
| Our temple-gates are open’d wide, | |
| Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping | |
| For these majestic forms’—they cried. | 65 |
| O, then we awoke with sudden start | |
| From our deep dream, and knew, too late, | |
| How bare the rock, how desolate, | |
| Which had received our precious freight: | |
| Yet we call’d out—‘Depart! | 70 |
| Our gifts, once given, must here abide: | |
| Our work is done; we have no heart | |
| To mar our work,’—we cried. | |
| |
