Sebastian
Cabot
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NEW
startled from her sensual dreams,
Europa half-expectant lay,
Revolving dimly broken gleams
Of some far-off unrisen day,
As one sees through dim mists of night
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Some
far, majestic, moon-paved mountain way.
On grim and barbarous couch reclined,
Groped blindly toward her ultimate goal,
When she through midnight of the mind
Would wake to knowledge of her soul.
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So with
a prescience all divine,
She left her bestial gods behind,
And turned her toward the western stars,
When this old rugged, princely tar-of-tars
Beat bravely out, where heaving leagues on leagues
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| Billowed
the western brine. |
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II
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Greater
than power or splendor,
Or birth, or might of gold,
Is the noble life of a noble man
Of a heart both brave and bold— |
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All
honor to the spirit
That knows not earth’s defeat,
That meets with courage true and strong
What brave souls have to meet—
And honor to the hero, |
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Who
centuries ago
Sailed out from old Bristowe
Into the trackless waters of the west;
Who bravely beat and beat
Where sky and waters meet,
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Till
he saw his white cliffs vanish
Under ocean’s heaving breast;
Nor cowardly turned him back,
But held straight on his track,
Through old ocean rose up ravening in gray and angry
wrack,
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And
bravely beat and bore up to the west;
All honor to his spirit,
For the glories we inherit,
And peace of mighty slumber
Breathe calmly round his rest!
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Where’er
his earthly bed,
About his pillowed head
Forever beats old Ocean’s monotone:—
For even from a child he loved its voices wild,
Its splendid throb that made his heart its own.
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45 |
III
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I dream
his name, and there doth come to be,
A vision of league-long breakers landward hurled;
Of olden ships far-beating out to sea;
Of splendid shining wastes of heaving green
Far-stretching round the world;
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Of many
voices heard from many lands,
Torrid and Arctic, Orient, and the Line;
Of heaving of vast anchors, vanishing strands;
And over all the wonder and thunder and wash
Of the loud, world-conquering brine.
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Of sky-rimmed
waste, or fog-enshrouded reef,
Where some mad siren ever sings the grief
Of all the mighty wrecks in that weird span
Since ocean and time began.
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IV
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| Venice
and England cradled! |
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Could
this seaman be
Other than ocean’s child,
With heart less restless than that vast and wild
Great heart of the thrilling sea?
Wakened to her long thunders,
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Cradled
in her soft voice,
Could other voice of all earth’s voices sweet
Make his stern heart rejoice?
Yea, this was better than all, greater than all
to him,
Truer than youth’s mad whim, |
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The
only love of his youth, the only lore of his age,
To gaze on her vast tumultuous scroll,
To pore on her wrinkled page:—
For he was very soul of her soul,
And she meet mother for him.
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V
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Over
the hazy distance,
Beyond the sunset’s rim,
Forever and forever
Those voices called to him.
Westward! westward! westward!
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85 |
The
sea sang in his head,
At morn in the busy harbor,
At nightfall on his bed—
Westward! westward! westward!
Over the line of breakers,
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90 |
Out
of the distance dim;
Forever the foam-white fingers
Beckoning, beckoning him.
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VI
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This
was no common spirit,
This sailor of old Bristowe;
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Not
one of the mart-made helots
Such as the world doth know;
But a bronzed and rugged veteran,
Adrift in the vanguard’s flow;
A son of the world’s great highway |
100 |
| Where
the mighty storm winds blow. |
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VII
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All
honor to this grand old Pilot,
Whose flag is struck, whose sails are furled,
Whose ship is beached, whose voyage ended;
Who sleeps somewhere in sod unknown,
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105 |
Without
a slab, without a stone,
In that great Island, sea-impearled.
Yea, reverence with honor blended,
For this old seaman of the past,
Who braved the leagues of ocean hurled,
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Who
out of danger knowledge rended,
And built the bastions, sure and fast,
Of that great bridgeway grand and vast
Of golden commerce round the world.
All honor! yea, a day shall come,
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If glory
lives in human rhyme,
When our poor faltering lips are dumb;
A greater and more splendid time,
When larger men of mightier aim
Shall do meet honor to his name.
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120 |
Yea,
honor! only greatness keeps
Its sanctuary where this seaman sleeps;
This old Venetian, Briton-born,
Who held of fear a hero’s scorn,
Who nailed his colors to the mast,
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125 |
Who
sought in reverence for the true,
And found it in the rifting blue
Of those broad furrows of the vast:—
Who knew no honors, held no state,
But in his ruggedness was great.
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Who
like some sea-shell, in him felt
The universe of ocean dwelt,
Whose whole true being nature cast
Like his own ocean-spaces, vast! |
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VII
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| Yea,
he is dead; this mighty seaman! |
135 |
Four
long centuries ago.
Beating westward, ever westward,
Beating out from old Bristowe,
Saw he far in visions lifted,
Down the golden sunset’s glow, |
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Through
the bars of twilight rifted,
All the glories that we know.
Beating westward, ever westward,
Over heaving leagues of brine,
Buffeted by arctic scurries,
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145 |
Languid
trade-winds from the line;
With a courage heaven-gifted,
And a fortitude divine.
Yea, he is dead; but who shall say
That all the splendid deeds he wrought,
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150 |
That
all the lofty truths he taught
(If truth be knowledge nobly sought),
Are dead and vanished quite away?
Nay nay, he lives; and such as he,
In every lofty human dream,
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155 |
In
every true sublimity
That splendors earth and makes it teem
With inward might and majesty;
This grand old Pilot of Bristowe,
Incarnate, comes to earth again,
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160 |
As
when, four hundred years ago,
He swept in storm and shine and snow,
Athwart the thunders of the main.
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IX
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Greater
far than shaft or storied fane,
Than bronze and marble blent,
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165 |
Greater
than all the honors he could gain
From a nation’s high intent,
He sleeps alone, in his great isle, unknown,
With the chalk-cliffs all around him for his might
grave-yard stone,
And the league-long sounding roar
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170 |
Of
old ocean, forevermore
Beating, beating, about his rest,
For fane and monument.
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