Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/35



Ah, prescient day when I came down to thee,

Heart of the sea, rebellious as my own!

No other tongue could tell the tragedy

Of those boy-dreamings that were not to be;

Such eloquence was thine and thine alone.

So that fair western land, where they had grown,

Sank to a thin grey line, and so I turned

And pledged my troth unto the great unknown,

Cruel, kind world. How little had I learned

In all the years before I sought the sea!

For as a myriad bubbles on our stem

Flashed to swift life, and then as swiftly died,

My fancy saw, like them, my visions yearn

An instant on my eyes, and then return

Upon the eddies of the backward tide.

Dear hopes of youth, so youthfully allied

With one familiar comer of the world!

Dear foolish dreams, in mercy thus denied!

How little knew I what the East unfurled:—

I was so wise, and had so much to learn!