e are those who stood to weather
These uncharted gulfs of tears?

Did your fellows all drive under
In the maelstrom of the sun,
While you only, for a wonder,
Rode the wash you could not shun?

We'll crowd sail across the sea-line,--
Clear this harbor, reef and buoy,
Bowling down an open bee-line
For the latitudes of joy;

Till beyond the zones of sorrow,
Past griefs haven in the night,
Some large simpler world shall morrow
This pale region's northern light.

Not a fear but all the sea-room,
Wherein time is but a bay,
Yet shall sparkle for our lee-room
In the vast Altrurian day.

And the dauntless seaworn spirit
Shall awake to know there are
What dominions to inherit,
Anchored off another star!

[Illustration]

_A Song Before Sailing_

"Cras ingens iterabimus aequor."

Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this old city by the sea
With news for me!

Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!
I am too sick at heart to war
With failure any more.

Thy chill is in my bones;
The moonlight on the stones
Is pale, and palpable, and cold;
I am as one grown old.

I call from room to room
Through the deserted gloom;
The echoes are all words I know,
Lost in some long ago.

I prowl from door to door,
And find no comrade more.
The wolfish fear that children feel
Is snuffing at my heel.

I hear the hollow sound
Of a great ship coming round,
The thunder of tackle and the tread
Of sailors overhead.

That stormy-blown hulloo
Has orders for me, too.
I see thee, hand at mouth, and hark,
My captain of the dark.

O wind of the great East,
By whom we are released
From this strange dusty port to sail
Beyond our fellows' hail,

Under the stars that keep
The entry of the deep,
Thy somber voice brings up the sea's
Forgotten melodies;

And I have no more need
Of bread, or wine, or creed,
Bound for the colonies of time
Beyond the farthest prime.

Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow through the empty street!
The last adventurer am I,
Then, world, good-by!

_In the Wings_

The play is Life; and this round earth,
The narrow stage whereon
We act before an audience
Of actors dead and gone.

There is a figure in the wings
That never goes away,
And though I cannot see his face,
I shudder while I play.

His shadow looms behind me here,
Or capers at my side;
And when I mouth my lines in dread,
Those scornful lips deride.

Sometimes a hooting laugh br