 | Lyrics and Dramas |  |
53
THE DOOM OF SAILS
Alas! must ye utterly vanish, and cease from amidst us,Sails of the olden sea?
Now dispossessed by the stern and stunted ironclad,
Wingless and squat and stern?
Purple sails of the heroes lured to the Westward,
Spread for the golden isles!
Sails of a magic foam with faëry plunder,
Wafting the wizard gold!
Sails of the morning, come like ghosts on the sea-line,
With midnight load of the deep!
Sails of the sunset, red over endless waters,
For the furthest Orient filled!
Sails of the starlight, passing we know not whither,
Silent, lighted, and lone!
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Hoist by a spectral crew!
Sails set afire by the lightning, resounding to tempest,
That drum and thunder and sing!
Sails that unruffled repose on a bosom of azure,
Glassed by a placid flood!
Alas! must ye go as a dream, and depart as a vision,
Sails of the olden sea?
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