BAHAMAN

    with good-byes on every lip,

Midst the waving caps and kisses,
    as we dropped down with the tide
And the faces blurred and faded,
    last of all your hand I spied

Signalling, Farewell; Good fortune!
    then my heart rose up and cried,

"While the world holds one such comrade,
    whose sweet durable regard
Would so speed my safe departure,

    lest home-leaving should be hard,
What care I who keeps the ferry,
    whether Charon or Cunard!"

Then we cleared the bar, and laid her
    on the course, the thousand miles

From the Hook to the Bahamas,
    from midwinter to the isles
Where frost never laid a finger,
    and eternal summer smiles.

Three days through the surly storm-beat,

    and the magic of those seas.

In that bright new world of wonder,
    it was life enough to laze
All day underneath the awnings,
    and through half-shut eyes to gaze

At the marvel of the sea-blue;
    and I faltered for a phrase

Should half give you the impression,
    tell you how the very tint
Justified your finest daring,

    as if Nature gave the hint,
"Plodders, see Imagination
    set his pallet without stint!"

Cobalt, gobelin, and azure,
     turquoise, sapphire, indigo,

Changing from the spectral bluish
    of a shadow upon snow
To the deep of Canton china,—
    one unfathomable glow.

And the flying fish,—to see them

    these bright spirit-things emerged;

Like those flocks of small white snowbirds
    we have seen start up before
Our brisk walk in winter weather
    by the snowy Scituate shore;

And the tiny shining sea-folk
    brought you back to me once more.

So we ran down Abaco;
    and passing that tall sentinel
Black against the sundown, sighted,

    as the sudden twilight fell,
Nassau light; and the warm darkness
    breathed on us from breeze and swell.

Stand-by bell and stop of engine;
    clank of anchor going down;

And those Hesperidian joy-lands
    were not strange to you and me.
Just beyond the lost horizon,
    every time we looked to sea
From Testudo, there they floated,

Well, we’ve proved it, prince of idlers,—
    knowledge wrong and faith sublime.

Right were you to follow fancy,
    give the vaguer instinct room
In a heaven of clear color,

    Where the spirit might assume
All her elemental beauty,
    past the fact of sky or bloom.

Paint the vision, not the view,—
    the touch that bids the sense good-bye,

Lifting spirit at a bound
    beyond the frontiers of the eye,
To suburb unguessed dominions
    of the soul’s credulity.

Never yet was painter, poet,

    To the life, yet fairer too,—

Where the soul may take her pleasure,
    contemplate perfection’s plan,
And returning bring the tidings
    of his heritage to man,—

News of continents uncharted
    she has stood tiptoe to scan.

So she fires his gorgeous fancy
     with a cadence, with a line,
Till the artist wakes within him,

    and the toiler grows divine,
Shaping the rough world about him
    nearer to some fair design.

Every heart must have its Indies,—
     an inheritance unclaimed

In the unsubstantial treasure
     of a province never named,
Loved and longed for through a lifetime,
    dull, laborious, and unfamed,

Never wholly disillusioned.

    this at last is all our lore.

But the fairies at your cradle
    gave you craft to build a home
In the wide bright world of color,
    with the cunning of a gnome;

    knocks forever at their breast,
Bidding them away to fortune
    in some undiscovered West;

While at home you sit and call
    the Orient up at your command,

Master of the iris seas
    and Prospero of the purple land.
Listen, here was one world-corner
    matched the cunning of your hand.

Not, my friend, since we were children,

While the poincianas, rustling
    like the rain, moved in the breeze,

Showed a city, coral-streeted,
    melting in the mellow shine,
Built of creamstone and enchantment,

    fairy work in every line,
In a velvet atmosphere
    that bids the heart her haste resign.

Thanks to Julian Hospitator,
    saint of travellers by sea,

Roving minstrels and all boatmen,—
    just such vagabonds as we,—
On the shaded wharf we landed,
    rich in leisure, hale and free.

What more would you for God’s creatures,

    and the green bird make his song;

Warmed and freshened, lulled yet quickened
    in that Paradisal air,
Motherly and uncapricious,
    healing every hurt or care,

Wooing body, mind, and spirit
    firmly back to strong and fair;

By the Angelus reminded,
    silence waits the touch of sound,
As the soul waits her awaking

    to some Gloria profound;
Till the mighty Southern Cross
    is lighted at the day’s last bound.

And if ever your fair fortune
    make you good Saint Vincent’s guest;

At his door take leave of trouble,
    welcomed to his decent rest,
Of his ordered peace partaker,
    by his solace healed and blessed;

Where this flowered cloister garden,

    in the blue day deep and vast.

This is Bay Street broad and low-built,
    basking in its quiet trade;
Here the sponging fleet is anchored;
    here shell trinkets are displayed;

Here the cable news is posted daily;
    here the market’s made,

With its oranges from Andros,
    heaps of yam and tamarind,
Red-juiced shadducks from the Current,

    ripened in the long trade-wind,
Gaudy fish from their sea-gardens,
    yellow-tailed and azure-finned.

Here a group of diving boys
    in bronze and ivory, bright and slim,

Sparkling copper in the high noon,
    dripping loin-cloth, polished limb,
Poised a moment and then plunged
    in that deep daylight green and dim.

Here the great rich Spanish laurels

    holding that great shelter true.

Last the picture from the town’s end,
    palmed and foam-fringed through the cane,
Where the gorgeous sunset yellows
    pour aloft and spill and stain

The pure amethystine sea
    and far faint islands of the main.

Loveliest of the Lucayas,
     peace be yours till time be done!
In the gray North I shall see you,

    with your white streets in the sun,
Old pink walls and purple gateways,
    where the lizards bask and run,

Where the great hibiscus blossoms
    in their scarlet loll and glow,

And the idling gay bandannas
    through the hot noons come and go,
While the ever stirring sea-wind
    sways the palm-tops to and fro.

Far from stress and storm forever,