Classic Poem

I.

Wide to the wind the canvas throw;
The moment calls, — away, away!
And let the full libation flow
To the bright sentinel of day;
Fill high the beaker to its brim,
And freely pour it in the sparkling sea,
That the blue-cinctured galley swim
Light as a bird who feels its liberty,
And, gladdening in the sun's reviving smile,
Floats o'er the water to its osier isle.

Now let the sails be widely spread
To catch the welcome breath of heaven;
The light clouds hurry overhead,
By the free mountain breezes driven.
We catch it now, — the enlivening air
Sounds cheerily amid the crackling sails;
Away, away! the wind is fair:
Haste on to meet the ever-blowing gales,
Where, softly breathing o'er the marble main,
They smooth its billows to a liquid plain.

II.

Spread every sail before the wind;
Catch all the breathings of a gale so fair;
It steals upon us from behind,
Like an invisible spirit through the air:
Wide laughs the quickly heaving sea, —
Its foam-wreaths twinkle in the sun;
Onward the galley hurries, steadily,
Like the front horse who knows the victory won,
And with his balanced limbs and waving mane
Skims, lightly as a dove, the even plain.

Yonder the mountains bluely rise,
Their foreheads whitened by the smile of heaven;
They hang like summer clouds around the skies
Soft slumbering in the golden light of even:
Yon peaks mount upward from the Elysian vales,
Where an eternal spring unfolds
Flowers never fading to her quickening gales,
And the same tree in blended beauty holds
Bud, bloom, and fruitage in its early down,
Or brightly peering forth amid its leafy crown.

There live the blessed, — a gentle air
Steals round them laden with the breath of flowers;
All tells of an eternal beauty there;
One glorious sunshine gilds the amaranth bowers:
No rolling cloud, no gusty rain,
No light-winged snow, come rushing from the sky,
But shining dews bedrop the spiky plain,
Oft twinkling as the sea-wind flutters by;
There hangs in middle air the princely palm,
Swaying its broad leaves to the whispering gale,
Its flower-tufts drooping low, as in a calm
Floats the gay pennon round the uncertain sail;
There springing from the ocean's breast,
Silent and cool, Hesperian breezes rove;
They only fan the happy to their rest,
And give a pleasing murmur to the grove.

III.

Steadily breathes the ever-blowing gale;
The ship rides proudly on the silent sea;
There 's music in the bosom of the sail,
Like the soft night-wind in a cypress-tree:
Spread smoothly as a temple's marble floor,
Heaves onward to the sky the long, long swell;
Nothing is heard but the far-uttered roar,
Stealing in undulations from the shore,
Like the low murmur in a twisted shell.
Steadily moves the ship along its way,
Sporting its streamers in the tropic sun,
While overhead glows a redoubled day,
And the still hours in higher circles run,
Till evening, in a wreath of glory drest,
Comes blushing from the rosy kindling west.

There is no visible motion in the air;
'Tis one eternal tide for ever going
On with the glorious orb that guides it there,
Like rivers down to ocean's hollow flowing:
The gull wheels round them on his balanced wing
Light as a snow-flake calmly floating by,
Watching with fixed eye, where with sudden spring
The blue-fin leaps to catch the painted fly:
So deep a calm broods over all, the crew
Slumber at midday on the shaded deck,
While the lone pilot safely steers them through
Seas that have rarely borne the shattered wreck;
Where the ship glides upon the pointed rock
So gently, not a sleeper feels the shock,
Then, slowly rocking, dips its plunging prow,
And rushes headlong to the abyss below.

The glory and the beauty of a calm;
The sun throned proudly in a deep blue sky;
No mist, no stain to dim its Tyrian dye;
The air all living with a breathing balm
Sent from the scarlet flower-tufts of the palm
On the lone rocky islet lifted high;
There the flamingo, like a thing of fire,
Shoots in a meteor flight, and grandly there
Sits the sea-eagle poised in middle air,
Rolling his red eye with a monarch's ire.
The ocean, as it moves along below,
Just strikes the rock, and heaves one foaming wave,
Or sends a hollow murmur through the cave,
Then softly steals away in silent flow.
How high, and yet how soothing, thus to sail
Steadily o'er a sheet of glassy green,
Curved to its centre like a verdant vale,
Where, all her canvas spread to catch the gale,
The vessel walks her way like ocean's queen, —
Seeming at distance through the crystalline air,
Her bright sails fringed with each aerial hue,
An iris floating on its ground of blue,
Or white-winged spirit calmly hovering there.

A FRAGMENT.

He long had wound his solitary way
Beneath the branches of a forest old,
And by his tangled path, in murmuring play,
A little river down its waters rolled;
Now in a deep and darkling pool it lay;
Then from the sun it caught, a touch of gold,
As through the lightly opening leaves it passed,
And gave a cheerful glance that could not last.

And so in long and silent wandering
He walked beneath the thick inwoven roof
Of the long boughs, and leaves low whispering;
And nothing sounded near him, but the hoof
Of the scared deer, that with a sudden spring
Fled his approach, and slyly kept aloof,
Watching him with a dark and eager eye,
Till he had passed the timid creature by.

And so he travelled on till low the sun
Had sank, and now looked through the ancient wood,
And bronzed the mossy trunks, as one by one
They met the flowing of that airy flood,
Which seemed on the cool evening wind to run,
Till it flowed o'er the thicket where he stood,
And gave to every shivering leaf and spray
A flush as of the merry morn in May.

And now he saw that he had well-nigh passed
The weary length of wilderness, for soon,
Between two poplars slender as a mast,
The sun shone broad, as when he holds at noon
The middle sky, and from behind them cast
A flash of light, till all the roof was strewn
With brightness, like a multitude of stars,
As the leaves shifted with the shifting airs.

And forth he went, and all before him lay
A meadow covered thick with summer flowers,
And through that glade the river took its way,
Now open, then beneath high-arching bowers,
Where the vine hung its clusters, and the bay
Shot through their purpling tufts its leafy towers;
The wind blew fresher there, and all the grass
Bent low its heavy head to let it pass.

And all that meadow kindled by the flush
Of the red sun, who now behind a hill
Dipped his broad circle, and with deepening blush
Each moment clipped his rosy fulness, till
He vanished quite, and then with sudden rush
Wide flashing streams of glory seemed to fill
The sky above him, and then mounted higher,
'Till half the heaven was like a sea of fire.

And gradually this glow of light grew pale,
And only hung on the low-lying cloud;
And then a long, dark shadow hid the vale,
And covered up its beauty, like a shroud;
Then all was dark, but the outspreading sail
Of the lone eagle, where he circled proud,
Seeming as if he could not bid adieu
To his loved sun, and so to meet him flew.

And then from out the forest boughs was heard,
As if it faintly mourned the dying day,
The soft complaining of a twilight bird;
And as the visible world all silent lay,
So that a bush or thicket hardly stirred,
It floated through the darkness far away;
Then sinking to a faint and fainter tone,
It left the wearied wanderer alone.