| A BATTER’D, wreck’d old man, | |
| Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home, | |
| Pent by the sea, and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, | |
| Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d, and nigh to death, | |
| I take my way along the island’s edge, | 5 |
| Venting a heavy heart. | |
| |
| I am too full of woe! | |
| Haply, I may not live another day; | |
| I can not rest, O God—I can not eat or drink or sleep, | |
| Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee, | 10 |
| Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee—commune with Thee, | |
| Report myself once more to Thee. | |
| |
| Thou knowest my years entire, my life, | |
| (My long and crowded life of active work—not adoration merely;) | |
| Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth; | 15 |
| Thou knowest my manhood’s solemn and visionary meditations; | |
| Thou knowest how, before I commenced, I devoted all to come to Thee; | |
| Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows, and strictly kept them; | |
| Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee; | |
| (In shackles, prison’d, in disgrace, repining not, | 20 |
| Accepting all from Thee—as duly come from Thee.) | |
| |
| All my emprises have been fill’d with Thee, | |
| My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee, | |
| Sailing the deep, or journeying the land for Thee; | |
| Intentions, purports, aspirations mine—leaving results to Thee. | 25 |
| |
| O I am sure they really come from Thee! | |
| The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will, | |
| The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words, | |
| A message from the Heavens, whispering to me even in sleep, | |
| These sped me on. | 30 |
| |
| By me, and these, the work so far accomplish’d (for what has been, has been;) | |
| By me Earth’s elder, cloy’d and stifled lands, uncloy’d, unloos’d; | |
| By me the hemispheres rounded and tied—the unknown to the known. | |
| |
| The end I know not—it is all in Thee; | |
| Or small, or great, I know not—haply, what broad fields, what lands; | 35 |
| Haply, the brutish, measureless human undergrowth I know, | |
| Transplanted there, may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee; | |
| Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn’d to reaping-tools; | |
| Haply the lifeless cross I know—Europe’s dead cross—may bud and blossom there. | |
| |
| One effort more—my altar this bleak sand: | 40 |
| That Thou, O God, my life hast lighted, | |
| With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee, | |
| (Light rare, untellable—lighting the very light! | |
| Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages!) | |
| For that, O God—be it my latest word—here on my knees, | 45 |
| Old, poor, and paralyzed—I thank Thee. | |
| |
| My terminus near, | |
| The clouds already closing in upon me, | |
| The voyage balk’d—the course disputed, lost, | |
| I yield my ships to Thee. | 50 |
| |
| Steersman unseen! henceforth the helms are Thine; | |
| Take Thou command—(what to my petty skill Thy navigation?) | |
| My hands, my limbs grow nerveless; | |
| My brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d; Let the old timbers part—I will not part! | |
| I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me; | 55 |
| Thee, Thee, at least, I know. | |
| |
| Is it the prophet’s thought I speak, or am I raving? | |
| What do I know of life? what of myself? | |
| I know not even my own work, past or present; | |
| Dim, ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me, | 60 |
| Of newer, better worlds, their mighty parturition, | |
| Mocking, perplexing me. | |
| |
| And these things I see suddenly—what mean they? | |
| As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes, | |
| Shadowy, vast shapes, smile through the air and sky, | 65 |
| And on the distant waves sail countless ships, | |
| And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me. | |
