Christopher Columbus

I like to draw Napoleon best
Because one hand is in his vest,
The other hand behind his back.
(For drawing hands I have no knack.)

Unless I'm very much misled,
Chesterton's easier done than said.
I have not seen him, but his looks
I can imagine from his books.

And he had mused on lands each bird,
That winged from realms of Falerina,
O'er seas of the Enchanted Sword,
In romance sang him, till he heard
Vague foam on Islands of Alcina.

For rich Levant and old Castile
Let other seamen freight their galleys;
With Polo he and Mandeville
Through stranger seas a dreamy keel
Sailed into wonder-peopled valleys.

Far continents of flow'r and fruit,
Of everlasting spring; where fountains
'Mid flow'rs, with human faces, shoot;
Where races dwell, both man and brute,
In cities under golden mountains.

Where cataracts their thunders hurl
From heights the tempest has at mercy;
Vast peaks that touch the moon, and whirl
Their torrents down of gold and pearl;
And forests strange as those of Circe.

(Written on the exhumation and reburial in Spain of the bones of Christopher Columbus.)


Once more upon the ocean's heaving breast
    He lays his head, not like the lover bold
    Who in the brave, chivalric days of old
Wooed from her lips the secret of the West,
But like a tired man going to his rest,
    No hopes to thrill, no yearnings to inspire,
    No tasks to burden, and no toil to tire,
No morn to waken to a day of quest.
Again upon the trackless deep,--again
    About him as of yore the wild winds play;
Behind him lies the world he gave to men,
    Before a grave in old Castile for aye:
Peace, winds and tides! Be calm, thou guardian sky,--
The lordliest dust of earth is passing by!

How in God’s name did Columbus get over
Is a pure wonder to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven’s name,
How he should ever think
That on the other brink
Of this wild waste terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

How a man ever should hope to get thither,
E’en if he knew that there was another side;
But to suppose he should come any whither,
Sailing straight on into chaos untried,
In spite of the motion
Across the whole ocean,
To stick to the notion
That in some nook or bend
Of a sea without end
He should find North and South America,
Was a pure madness, indeed I must say, to...

Steer on, bold sailor Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
Yet ever ever to the West, for there the coast must lie,
And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye;
Yea, trust the guiding God and go along the floating grave,
Though hid till now yet now behold the New World o'er the wave!
With genius Nature ever stands in solemn union still,
And ever what the one foretells the other shall fulfil.