The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

At last he spied a glorious sight,
The blue Atlantic, jeweled bright
With countless ripples, shining keen
As facets graved in tourmaline;
And just below the bowldered hill
Whereon he paused to gaze his fill,
He found the very thing he lacked
To be an ocean god in fact.

Beside the drowsy, nodding sedge
That rimmed a tiny haven's edge,
Where baby billows romped and laughed
As though their feather-heads were daft,
He found a jaunty coasting craft,
(At anchor, though with canvas spread,)
Which had a mast and figure-head
And boom and rudder, like the one
Himself had built a month agone;
Whereat he thanked the kindly skies
And claimed the sloop as lawful prize.

Some thieving tories lurked aboard
Who promptly died by Freedom's sword,
For vagabonds of traitor kind
Were not a whit to Downing's mind,
And rarely fled his noble hate
Withouten loss of limb or pate,
As crabs escape from mortal rout
Because their legs and tails pull out.

The skirmish done, the pirates slain,
Our chieftain snapped the anchor chain

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And turned without a change of face
To challenge Fortune's weird embrace.
He turned his back on natal shore
And all the life he lived before.
Alone he dared the protean sea;
Alone, yet confident that he
Would surely reach the other beach
And spoil the men of Teuton speech,
And make their Thor and Odin flee.