Poems of Sidney Lanier/A Song of the Future

Sail fast, sail fast, Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams; Sweep lordly o’er the drowned Past, Fly glittering through the sun’s strange beams; Sail fast, sail fast. Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea With news about the Future scent the sea: My brain is beating like the heart of Haste: I’ll loose me a bird upon this Present waste; Go, trembling song, And stay not long; oh, stay not long: Thou’rt only a gray and sober dove, But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.