Classic Poem

Therefore: " The course is timewards"! I exclaim.
" Timewards she is!" you echo. Spanish Main
Of our time-travel promises no gold,
What matter though? Mercurial and bold
We find a New Land, a lost Lyonesse
At every breathless daybreak, more or less.
With trowel and vasculum we swiftly land,
Theodolites cut up the mystery-strand:
Then pulling up the hook, we speed away,
Shooting the sun (and stars) as best we may:
Log-glass and line inform us of our place,
And so, drunk with the New, we gladly race
Upon fresh spectacles, risen overnight,
The fortresses of spice, great baths of light.
We figure by dead reckoning we go true,
And true we go, we never want for " the new".
Strange shores shoot up-and-down, some brown, some pink,
It depends on the convulsion, and then sink —
As it is said that Rapa Nui does
And many one-day archipelagos.
Who is the captain of this happy scow?
It's me , you get me, is the skipper now!
Writing by binnacle-lamplight I make out
The log — in the matter of landfalls do us proud.
No matter if the next ship looks in vain
For these short-lived time-islands of our Main,
Our temporal Pacific! One, two, three!
We spot fresh atolls between lunch and tea.
And in the sunset pearlinglugger fleets
Betray the presence of still further treats
For pop-eyed look-outs, and kanaka lands
Come up between the watches with their sands.
Reversed lagoons, for our unsceptic eye,
Show (inside-out) how the new land does lie!