C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

A Myth

A-FLOATING, a-floating

Across the sleeping sea,

All night I heard a singing bird

Upon the topmost tree.

“Oh, came you from the isles of Greece

Or from the banks of Seine;

Or off some tree in forests free,

Which fringe the western main?”

“I came not off the Old World,

Nor yet from off the New;

But I am one of the birds of God

Which sing the whole night through.”

“Oh, sing and wake the dawning—

Oh, whistle for the wind:

The night is long, the current strong,

My boat it lags behind.”

“The current sweeps the Old World,

The current sweeps the New:

The wind will blow, the dawn will glow,

Ere thou hast sailed them through.”