Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

Yes, they told me I was steering, as the angry wind went veering,
On a rude and rocky shore
With the breakers on my lee;
And old mariners, whose faces had found grim and rugged graces
In the waves and wondrous lore,
Long had counselled I must flee.
They had washed them in the ocean's brine, and felt the maddest motions
Of the tempest in its track, when it scattered wrath and wrack;
They were salted souls and true, and had learned the water's clue,
But the boldest of them shuddered as I shook out reefs, unruddered,
And to shelter turned my back—
For the death or glory's due.

But I stayed not, and the thralling of a sure and secret calling
Drew me coldly, blithely on
To the triumph or the doom.
And the warning was not needed, and the wishes fell unheeded,
Though no sunshine ever shone
Through the thwart and solid gloom.
For I heard the mystic voices and despised the meaner choices
Which put safety before light and the knowledge that is might;

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And I saw no portal yet in the perils that beset,
As I took the crested billow at its flood and gained a pillow
Which was balm unto my flight—
And the pain I did forget.

With a music as of thunder, lo, I ploughed the surf asunder,
Lifted gladly with the tide
As a king upon a throne;
And the scudding spray beat yellow on my brow, and with a bellow
Leapt the breaker in its pride,
Like a beast with baffled tone.
But I reached the glorious haven, and beneath me like a paven
Road the surges for me spread drift of dying things and dead,
While their enmity was aid and about me kindly laid;
I seemed coming to a splendid feast by every power attended,
Earth was brighter for my tread
With its blossoms' tangled braid.

But the ship that bravely carried me, and was so sorely harried
By the buffets of the storm,
Now was conquered at the last;
And it lay in fragments broken, a poor silent toy and token
Of the grand imperial form,
And a bye-word of the blast.
It had done the simple duty when it bore me in its beauty
To the harbour I would seek, and then sank down spent and meek,
With the service and the joy that no ruin could destroy;
Part was tumbled with the shingle, part was glad in peace to mingle

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With the muddy ooze and reek—
But in God for God's employ.

Ah, I found the kingdom sodden with my blood was soil untrodden
And a virgin land and sweet
Rich with every valued spoil;
And its fields unmapt, unbounded, with familiar strains resounded
In a welcome new and meet,
And it fruited without toil.
Never yet had gallant mortal passed the dim and dreadsome portal
Which concealed such dainty store, silver song and golden ore
And the royal pearls and gems fit for bridal vesture hems;
I had won the treasure hidden by the ages and forbidden,
Just because I loved it more—
Truth, not empty diadems.

But the harvest and the winning were my end, though the beginning
Of a better time for man,
And his cradle was my grave;
For its ploughing thus divided what had else the years derided,
And the sowing if a span
Was the life my body gave.
And the thoughts that cannot perish which the nations dearly cherish,
I did offer as the price beyond rubies and rare spice;
And they burst the sealèd door, and left the abyss a floor
Where enfranchised peoples gaily take their will and pastime daily,
On the unknown sacrifice—
And no lot is longer poor.