Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Browning. 18121889716. The Wanderers
OVER the sea our galleys went, | |
With cleaving prows in order brave | |
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave— | |
A gallant armament: | |
Each bark built out of a forest-tree | 5 |
Left leafy and rough as first it grew, | |
And nail’d all over the gaping sides, | |
Within and without, with black bull-hides, | |
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, | |
To bear the playful billows’ game; | 10 |
So, each good ship was rude to see, | |
Rude and bare to the outward view. | |
But each upbore a stately tent | |
Where cedar pales in scented row | |
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, | 15 |
And an awning droop’d the mast below, | |
In fold on fold of the purple fine, | |
That neither noontide nor star-shine | |
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, | |
Might pierce the regal tenement. | 20 |
When the sun dawn’d, O, gay and glad | |
We set the sail and plied the oar; | |
But when the night-wind blew like breath, | |
For joy of one day’s voyage more, | |
We sang together on the wide sea, | 25 |
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore; | |
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free, | |
Each helm made sure by the twilight star, | |
And in a sleep as calm as death, | |
We, the voyagers from afar, | 30 |
Lay stretch’d along, each weary crew | |
In a circle round its wondrous tent | |
Whence gleam’d soft light and curl’d rich scent, | |
And with light and perfume, music too: | |
So the stars wheel’d round, and the darkness past, | 35 |
And at morn we started beside the mast, | |
And still each ship was sailing fast! | |
Now, one morn, land appear’d—a speck | |
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky— | |
‘Avoid it,’ cried our pilot, ‘check | 40 |
The shout, restrain the eager eye!’ | |
But the heaving sea was black behind | |
For many a night and many a day, | |
And land, though but a rock, drew nigh; | |
So we broke the cedar pales away, | 45 |
Let the purple awning flap in the wind, | |
And a statue bright was on every deck! | |
We shouted, every man of us, | |
And steer’d right into the harbour thus, | |
With pomp and pæan glorious. | 50 |
A hundred shapes of lucid stone! | |
All day we built its shrine for each, | |
A shrine of rock for ever one, | |
Nor paused till in the westering sun | |
We sat together on the beach | 55 |
To sing because our task was done; | |
When lo! what shouts and merry songs! | |
What laughter all the distance stirs! | |
A loaded raft with happy throngs | |
Of gentle islanders! | 60 |
‘Our isles are just at hand,’ they cried, | |
‘Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping; | |
Our temple-gates are open’d wide, | |
Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping | |
For these majestic forms’—they cried. | 65 |
O, then we awoke with sudden start | |
From our deep dream, and knew, too late, | |
How bare the rock, how desolate, | |
Which had received our precious freight: | |
Yet we call’d out—’Depart! | 70 |
Our gifts, once given, must here abide: | |
Our work is done; we have no heart | |
To mar our work,’—we cried. |