The Poetical Works of James Gates Percival :: :: University of Virginia Library

Wide to the wind the canvas throw;
The moment calls,—away, away!
And let the full libation flow
To the bright sentinel of day;
Fill high the beaker to its brim,
And freely pour it in the sparkling sea,
That the blue-cinctured galley swim
Light as a bird who feels its liberty,
And, gladdening in the sun's reviving smile,
Floats o'er the water to its osier isle.

Now let the sails be widely spread
To catch the welcome breath of heaven;
The light clouds hurry overhead,
By the free mountain breezes driven.
We catch it now,—the enlivening air
Sounds cheerily amid the crackling sails;
Away, away! the wind is fair:
Haste on to meet the ever-blowing gales,
Where, softly breathing o'er the marble main,
They smooth its billows to a liquid plain.

II.

Spread every sail before the wind;
Catch all the breathings of a gale so fair;
It steals upon us from behind,
Like an invisible spirit through the air:
Wide laughs the quickly heaving sea,—
Its foam-wreaths twinkle in the sun;
Onward the galley hurries, steadily,
Like the front horse who knows the victory won,
And with his balanced limbs and waving mane
Skims, lightly as a dove, the even plain.

255

Yonder the mountains bluely rise,
Their foreheads whitened by the smile of heaven;
They hang like summer clouds around the skies
Soft slumbering in the golden light of even:
Yon peaks mount upward from the Elysian vales,
Where an eternal spring unfolds
Flowers never fading to her quickening gales,
And the same tree in blended beauty holds
Bud, bloom, and fruitage in its early down,
Or brightly peering forth amid its leafy crown.

There live the blessed,—a gentle air
Steals round them laden with the breath of flowers;
All tells of an eternal beauty there;
One glorious sunshine gilds the amaranth bowers:
No rolling cloud, no gusty rain,
No light-winged snow, come rushing from the sky,
But shining dews bedrop the spiky plain,
Oft twinkling as the sea-wind flutters by;
There hangs in middle air the princely palm,
Swaying its broad leaves to the whispering gale,
Its flower-tufts drooping low, as in a calm
Floats the gay pennon round the uncertain sail;
There springing from the ocean's breast,
Silent and cool, Hesperian breezes rove;
They only fan the happy to their rest,
And give a pleasing murmur to the grove.

III.

Steadily breathes the ever-blowing gale;
The ship rides proudly on the silent sea;
There 's music in the bosom of the sail,
Like the soft night-wind in a cypress-tree:
Spread smoothly as a temple's marble floor,
Heaves onward to the sky the long, long swell;
Nothing is heard but the far-uttered roar,
Stealing in undulations from the shore,
Like the low murmur in a twisted shell.

256

Steadily moves the ship along its way,
Sporting its streamers in the tropic sun,
While overhead glows a redoubled day,
And the still hours in higher circles run,
Till evening, in a wreath of glory drest,
Comes blushing from the rosy kindling west.

There is no visible motion in the air;
'T is one eternal tide for ever going
On with the glorious orb that guides it there,
Like rivers down to ocean's hollow flowing:
The gull wheels round them on his balanced wing
Light as a snow-flake calmly floating by,
Watching with fixed eye, where with sudden spring
The blue-fin leaps to catch the painted fly:
So deep a calm broods over all, the crew
Slumber at midday on the shaded deck,
While the lone pilot safely steers them through
Seas that have rarely borne the shattered wreck;
Where the ship glides upon the pointed rock
So gently, not a sleeper feels the shock,
Then, slowly rocking, dips its plunging prow,
And rushes headlong to the abyss below.

The glory and the beauty of a calm;
The sun throned proudly in a deep blue sky;
No mist, no stain to dim its Tyrian dye;
The air all living with a breathing balm
Sent from the scarlet flower-tufts of the palm
On the lone rocky islet lifted high;
There the flamingo, like a thing of fire,
Shoots in a meteor flight, and grandly there
Sits the sea-eagle poised in middle air,
Rolling his red eye with a monarch's ire.
The ocean, as it moves along below,
Just strikes the rock, and heaves one foaming wave,
Or sends a hollow murmur through the cave,
Then softly steals away in silent flow.

257

How high, and yet how soothing, thus to sail
Steadily o'er a sheet of glassy green,
Curved to its centre like a verdant vale,
Where, all her canvas spread to catch the gale,
The vessel walks her way like ocean's queen,—
Seeming at distance through the crystalline air,
Her bright sails fringed with each aerial hue,
An iris floating on its ground of blue,
Or white-winged spirit calmly hovering there.