Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/504

472  O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
 * The enchanted sea on which they sailed,

Are these poor fragments only left
 * Of vain desires and hopes that failed?

Did I not watch from them the light
 * Of sunset on my towers in Spain,

And see, far off, uploom in sight
 * The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?

Did sudden lift of fog reveal
 * Arcadia’s vales of song and spring,

And did I pass, with grazing keel,
 * The rocks whereon the sirens sing?

Have I not drifted hard upon
 * The unmapped regions lost to man,

The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
 * The palace domes of Kubla Khan?

Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers,
 * Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills?

Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers,
 * And gold from Eldorado’s hills?

Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed
 * On blind Adventure’s errand sent,

Howe’er they laid their courses, failed
 * To reach the haven of Content.

And of my ventures, those alone
 * Which Love had freighted, safely sped,

Seeking a good beyond my own,
 * By clear-eyed Duty piloted.

O mariners, hoping still to meet
 * The luck Arabian voyagers met,

And find in Bagdad’s moonlit street,
 * Haroun al Raschid walking yet,

Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams,
 * The fair, fond fancies dear to youth.

I turn from all that only seems,
 * And seek the sober grounds of truth.

What matter that it is not May,
 * That birds have flown, and trees are bare,

That darker grows the shortening day,
 * And colder blows the wintry air!

The wrecks of passion and desire,
 * The castles I no more rebuild,

May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,
 * And warm the hands that age has chilled.

Whatever perished with my ships,
 * I only know the best remains;

A song of praise is on my lips
 * For losses which are now my gains.

Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost;
 * No wisdom with the folly dies.

Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust
 * Shall be my evening sacrifice!

Far more than all I dared to dream,
 * Unsought before my door I see;

On wings of fire and steeds of steam
 * The world’s great wonders come to me,

And holier signs, unmarked before,
 * Of Love to seek and Power to save,—

The righting of the wronged and poor,
 * The man evolving from the slave;

And life, no longer chance or fate,
 * Safe in the gracious Fatherhood.

I fold o’er-wearied hands and wait,
 * In full assurance of the good.

And well the waiting time must be,
 * Though brief or long its granted days,

If Faith and Hope and Charity
 * Sit by my evening hearth-fire’s blaze.

And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared,
 * Whose love my heart has comforted,

And, sharing all my joys, has shared
 * My tender memories of the dead,—

Dear souls who left us lonely here,
 * Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom

We, day by day, are drawing near,
 * Where every bark has sailing room.

I know the solemn monotone
 * Of waters calling unto me;

I know from whence the airs have blown
 * That whisper of the Eternal Sea.

As low my fires of drift-wood burn,
 * I hear that sea’s deep sounds increase,

And, fair in sunset light, discern
 * Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace.