University of Virginia Library

I.

What would they think of this, the men of old,
Against whose little world its waters rolled,
Immeasurable, pitiless as Fate,
A thing to fear and hate?
Age after age they saw it flow, and flow,
Lifting the weeds, and laying bare the sands;
Whence did it come, and whither did it go?
To what far isles, what undiscovered lands?
Who knoweth? None can say, for none has crossed
That unknown sea; no sail has ventured there,
Save what the storms have driven, and those are lost,
And none have come—from where?
Beyond the straits where those great pillars stand
Of Hercules, there is no solid land;
Only the fabled Islands of the Blest,
That slumber somewhere in the golden West;
The Fortunate Isles, where falls no winter snow,
But where the palm-trees wave in endless spring,
And the birds sing,
And balmy west winds blow!
Beyond this bright Elysium all is sea;
A plain of foam that stretches on and on,
Beyond the clouds, beyond the setting sun,
Endless and desolate as Eternity!
At last, from out the wild and stormy north—
Or is it but a dream?—a bark puts forth
Into that unknown sea. It nears me now;
I see its flapping sails, its dragon prow,
Its daring men; I know the arms they bear;
I know those shaggy Jarls with lengths of yellow hair!
They go and come no more.
Still lies the sea as awful as before!
Who shall explore its bounds, if bounds there be?
Who shall make known to Man the secret of the Sea?
The Genoese! His little fleet departs,
Steered by the prospering pilot of the wind.
The sailors crowd the stern with troubled hearts,
Watching their homes that slowly drop behind;
His looms before, for by the prow he stands,
And sees in his rapt thoughts the undiscovered lands!
All day they sail; the sun goes down at night
Below the waves, and land is still afar;
The sluggish sailors sleep, but see, his light
As steady as a star!
He pores upon his chart with sleepless eyes,
Till day returns and walks the gloomy skies.
In vain the sullen sailors climb the shrouds,
And strain their eyes upon the giddy mast;
They see the sky, the sun, the anchored clouds—
The only Land is passed!
Day follows day, night, night; and sea and sky
Still yawn beyond, and fear to fear succeeds.
At last a knot of weeds goes drifting by,
And then a sea of weeds!
The winds are faint with spice, the skies are bland
And filled with singing birds, and some alight,
And cheer the sailors with their news of land,
Until they fly at night.
At last they see a light!
The keen-eyed Admiral sees it from his bark,
A little dancing flame that flickers through the dark!
They bed their rusty anchors in the sand,
And all night long they lie before the land,
And watch and pray for day!
When morning lifts the mist, a league away,
Like some long cloud on Ocean's glittering floor,
It takes the rising sun—a wooded shore,
With many a glassy bay!
The first great footstep in that new-found world
Is his, who plucked it from the greedy main,
And his the earliest kiss, the holiest prayer;
He draws his sword, his standard is unfurled,
And while it lifts its wedded crowns in air
He plants the cross, and gives his world to Heaven and Spain!
His silver furrow faded in the sea,
But thousands followed to the lands he won:
They grew as native to the waves, as free
As sea-birds in the sun!
Their white sails glanced in every bay and stream!
They climbed the hills, they tracked the pathless woods,
And towns and cities o'er the solitudes
Rose, as in a dream!
The happy Worlds exchanged their riches then;
The New sent forth her tributes to the Old,
In galleons full of gold,
And she repaid with men!
Thus did the grand old sailor wrest the key
From Nature's grasp, unlocking all the Past,
And thus was won at last
A victory o'er the sea!

II.

The victory of To-day
Completes what he began,
Along the dark and barren watery way,
And in the Mind of Man!
He did but find a world of land, but we
What worlds of thought in land, and air, and sea!
Beside our ships, whose masts o'ertop the trees
On windy hills, whose hulls are palaces,
His crazy caravels
Were little seashore shells!
His weary months of wandering seem a dream;
For, sped by our broad sails and flashing wheels
We shorten the long leagues with sliding keels,
And turn the months to days, and make the sea a stream!
The worlds are nearer now, but still too far;
They must be nearer still! To Saxon men,
Who dare to think, and use the tongue or pen,
What can be long a bar?
We rob the Lightning of its deadly fires,
And make it bear our words along the wires
That run from land to land. Why should we be
Divided by the Sea?
It shall no longer be! A chain shall run
Below the stormy waves, and bind the worlds in one!
Across the under-world of rocks and sands,
Across the buried lands;
Through wastes of seaweed, tangled in their slime;
Through forests, vaster than the land has known;
And over chasms where earthquakes were o'erthrown
Before the Birth of Time!
'Tis done!
The Worlds are One!
And lo! the chain that binds them binds the Race
That dwells on either shore;
By Space and Time no more
Divided, for to-day there is no Time or Space!
We speak,—the Lightnings flee,
Flashing the Thoughts of Man across the Conquered Sea!

III.

Ring, jubilant bells! ring out a merry chime
From every tower and steeple in the land,
Triumphant music for the march of Time,
The better days at hand!
And you, ye cannon, through your iron lips,
That guard the dubious peace of warlike Powers,
Thunder abroad this victory of ours
From all your forts and ships!
We need your noisy voices to proclaim
The Nation's joy to-day from shore to shore;
The grim protection of your deathful flame
We hope to need no more;
For, save our English brothers, who dare be
Our foes, or rivals, on the land or sea?
Nor dare We fight again, as in the Past;
For, now that We are One, contention ends;
We are, We must be friends;
This victory is the last!