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

The vessel followed him; it stole
In silence on; it touched the mole
With gentle rustle, like to moss,
Or fungus sprays, or thistle floss,
A sigh of ruin barely heard,
Though never starer murmured word.

Arising, Downing turned to gaze,
But only spied a drowsy haze

204

Of ashy motes and filmy scales
In place of hull and masts and sails.
Inert and pale it towered high;
One solemn moment stained the sky;
Then slowly into distance waned,
And when it vanished, naught remained;
The ocean-pest had ceased to roam;
The voyagers had found their home.
But e'en to that upstaring throng
Descended grateful drifts of song,
The chorusings of raptured sprites
Already nearing Eden's heights;
To whom replied a welcome-psalm
From courts of golden crown and palm.

Then, peering downward through the tide
Of verdant crystal, men espied
A pulverous settling, frail as dawn,
That glimmered, shuddered, and was gone.
Thin waters, woven through with braid
Of trembling sunbeams, overlaid
The formless, stagnant residue
Of one whom every tempest knew.

So endeth oft the noblest plan
Of life's mysterious vagrant, Man.
He struggles long with hostile waves;
He triumphs, calls the winds his slaves;
He hastens, thinking not to drown,
And, shouting, “Land!” goes swiftly down.