Classic Poem

1

City of kith and kin, farewell!
It will be months, it may be years,
Ere once again, through wanderer's tears,
I hail thy beauty — who can tell?

Away! the westward-rolling sun
Beckons us, we are his perforce;
Him must we follow in his course;
Across a continent we run.

The Alleghanies, white with snow,
The Mississippi's mighty flood,
The prairies, with their tales of blood,
We reach, we pass them, as we go.

Away — away! The rumbling car
Flies onward toward the Golden Gate;
Before me lands untraveled wait,
Behind me friends and kinsmen are.

2

Behind me kinsmen are and friends,
The mighty ocean lies before,
To-morrow from this rock-bound shore
Its waves shall bear me to earth's ends.

O heart, almost, in this last hour,
Thou seek'st to evade my cherished plan
To view the varied lands where man
Displays his civilizing power.

O feet, that foreign soil ne'er pressed,
Almost ye dread my dear design
To cross that far meridian's line
Which separates the East from West.

Hard is 't to part; and, mother dear,
Hardest of all to part from thee;
For since I sat upon thy knee
My life to thine has followed near.

3

The bell strikes noon; I hear the sound
Of farewell voices in the air;
And out the bay we go to where
The vast Pacific rims us round.

Tumultuous sea! Perhaps, far south,
In other latitudes, where came
The adventurous Spaniard first, thy name
Is no misnomer; but the mouth

That here salutes thee Peaceful errs:
E'en as the Atlantic's boisterous rage,
Which wreck and ruin doth presage,
Is thine, and oft thy passion stirs.

Blow, blow, ye gales! Anon we flee,
Sail set, before your wintry smiles;
Anon we breast your buffets, whiles
A boiling caldron is the sea.

4

The tempest all the welkin fills,
And fury stirs the mighty main,
Upbroken is the ocean-plain
Into innumerable hills.

The decks are wet; upon the bridge
I see the bearded captain stand;
A son of Britain's sea-girt land,
He loves to leap from ridge to ridge.

The decks are wet; day after day
Through frenzied winds and waves we steer;
But singing at their work I hear
The hardy sailors of Cathay.

And though at night above my berth
Fall — many a ton in weight — the seas,
I lay me down with mind at ease,
And sleep as on the solid earth.