Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79.
The Phantom Ship
By From the GermanT
The sky is deserted of moon and star.
It is the hour when the ship goeth sailing
Along the dusk ocean fast and far.
That lone ship, steered by a viewless hand,
And pauseless on her path,
No storm shall wreck; she shall, reach the strand
Unharmed by the elements’ wrath.
The winds are dumb, and the stilled air dies,
Arises a barren rock, and pillows
Its naked head amid burning skies.
There nothing bloometh of green or soft;
No blithe bird nestles there;
The eagle alone, from his throne aloft,
Reigns over a desert bare.
Her king, her hero, her man of doom,
And his head-gear, golden sceptre, and sword
Lie noteless on his forsaken tomb.
No voice bewails the illustrious dead;
It is silentness all and dearth,
It is ghastly gloom round the last low bed
Of the mightiest spirit of earth!
And stark the emperor lieth alway,
Till again in its course refalleth newly
The stormful night of the fifth of May.
Amiddle that black and dolorous night
He passed from this world of strife,
And, when it returns, in the swift year’s flight,
He awakes for a while to life.
The ship approaches in phantom-show,
A spectre-flag at her mast-head flying
Of golden bees on a field of snow.
And the king embarks, in the moonlight blue,
And away she hies as a bird,
Without a pilot, without a crew,
And with sails all wind-unstirred.
And looks abroad through the desert night.
His thoughts fly back to his years of glory;
His eyes rekindle with living light.
And on she speeds to the ancient shore
Of history and romance,—
And the hero’s heart leaps up once more,—
He knows his beloved France!
Beneath the feet of the genius of war;
But, how changed seems all! The land resembles
The wreck, the shell of a burnt-out star!
He seeketh her cities, but findeth none,—
He looks for her armies in vain,—
They flourished, they lived, but under the sun
Of his resplendent reign!
’T is trod into dust with the things that were.
France knows it no more! Yet still hath he one quest,—
The father looks round for his royal heir;
He calls aloud for the boy whose birth
Was hailed as the hope of the age;
Alas! his life is outblotted from earth,
His name from history’s page!
“My glory, my people, my son, my crown!
O, how are the days of my power departed!
How lost is the nation I raised to renown!
My house and my hopes alike lie prone
In an all-engulfing grave,—
A slave sits now upon Cæsar’s throne,
And Cæsar hath sunk to a slave!”