Poems of Sidney Lanier | ||
V.
“Ere we Gomera cleared, a coward cried,Turn, turn: here be three caravels ahead,
From Portugal, to take us: we are dead!
Hold Westward, pilot, calmly I replied.
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Go back, go back! they prayed: our hearts are lead.—
Friends, we are bound into the West, I said.
Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side.
See (so they wept) God's Warning! Admiral, turn!—
Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West.
Then down the night we saw the meteor burn.
So do the very heavens in fire protest:
Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain!—
Hold straight into the West, I said again.
Poems of Sidney Lanier | ||