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(Extract)
’T WAS night. The moon o’er the wide wave disclosed | |
| Her awful face, and Nature’s self reposed, | |
| When, slowly rising in the azure sky, | |
| Three white sails shone, but to no mortal eye, | |
| Entering a boundless sea. In slumber cast, | 5 |
| The very ship-boy on the dizzy mast | |
| Half breathed his orisons! Alone unchanged, | |
| Calmly, beneath, the great commander ranged, | |
| Thoughtful, not sad; and as the planet grew, | |
| His noble form, wrapt in his mantle blue, | 10 |
| Athwart the deck a deepening shadow threw. | |
| “Thee hath it pleased,—Thy will be done!” he said, | |
| Then sought his cabin; and, their garments spread, | |
| Around him lay the sleeping as the dead, | |
| When by his lamp to that mysterious guide | 15 |
| On whose still counsels all his hopes relied, | |
| That oracle to man in mercy given, | |
| Whose voice is truth, whose wisdom is from heaven, | |
| Who over sands and seas directs the stray, | |
| And as with God’s own finger points the way, | 20 |
| He turned; but what strange thoughts perplexed his soul, | |
| When, lo, no more attracted to the pole, | |
| The compass, faithless as the circling vane, | |
| Fluttered and fixed, fluttered and fixed again! | |
| At length, as by some unseen hand imprest, | 25 |
| It sought with trembling energy—the west! | |
| “Ah no!” he cried, and calmed his anxious brow. | |
| “Ill, nor the signs of ill, ’t is thine to show; | |
| Thine but to lead me where I wished to go!” | |
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| Columbus erred not. In that awful hour, | 30 |
| Sent forth to save, and girt with godlike power, | |
| And glorious as the regent of the sun, | |
| An angel came! He spoke, and it was done! | |
| He spoke, and at his call a mighty wind, | |
| Not like the fitful blast, with fury blind, | 35 |
| But deep, majestic, in its destined course, | |
| Sprung with unerring, unrelenting force, | |
| From the bright east. Tides duly ebbed and flowed, | |
| Stars rose and set, and new horizons glowed; | |
| Yet still it blew! As with primeval sway | 40 |
| Still did its ample spirit, night and day, | |
| Move on the waters!—All, resigned to fate, | |
| Folded their arms and sate; and seemed to wait | |
| Some sudden change; and sought, in chill suspense, | |
| New spheres of being and new modes of sense; | 45 |
| As men departing, though not doomed to die, | |
| And midway on their passage to eternity. * * * * * | |
| Still, as beyond this mortal life impelled | |
| By some mysterious energy, he held | |
| His everlasting course. Still self-possessed, | 50 |
| High on the deck he stood, disdaining rest | |
| (His amber chain the only badge he bore, | |
| His mantle blue such as his fathers wore); | |
| Fathomed, with searching hand, the dark profound, | |
| And scattered hope and glad assurance round, | 55 |
| Though, like some strange portentous dream, the past | |
| Still hovered, and the cloudless sky o’ercast. | |
| At daybreak might the caravels be seen | |
| Chasing their shadows o’er the deep serene; | |
| Their burnished prows lashed by the sparkling tide, | 60 |
| Their green-cross standards waving far and wide. | |
| And now once more to better thoughts inclined, | |
| The seaman, mounting, clamored in the wind. | |
| The soldier told his tales of love and war; | |
| The courtier sung,—sung to his gay guitar. | 65 |
| Round, at Primero, sate a whiskered band; | |
| So Fortune smiled, careless of sea or land! | |
| Leon, Montalvan (serving side by side; | |
| Two with one soul,—and as they lived, they died); | |
| Vasco, the brave, thrice found among the slain, | 70 |
| Thrice, and how soon, up and in arms again, | |
| As soon to wish he had been sought in vain, | |
| Chained down in Fez, beneath the bitter thong, | |
| To the hard bench and heavy oar so long! | |
| Albert of Florence, who, at twilight-time, | 75 |
| In my rapt ear poured Dante’s tragic rhyme, | |
| Screened by the sail as near the mast we lay, | |
| Our nights illumined by the ocean-spray; | |
| And Manfred, who espoused with jewelled ring | |
| Young Isabel, then left her sorrowing: | 80 |
| Lerma “the generous,” Avila “the proud”; | |
| Velasquez, Garcia, through the echoing crowd | |
| Araced by their mirth,—from Ebro’s classic shore, | |
| From golden Tajo, to return no more! | |
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