He bowed his head, and bent his knee 5 "No pity, Lord, could change the heart 10 15 20 From red with wrong to white as wool: ""T is not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'T is by our follies that so long We hold the earth from heaven away. "These clumsy feet, still in the mire, Go crushing blossoms without end; "The ill-timed truth we might have kept Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung! The word we had not sense to say Who knows how grandly it had rung! "Our faults no tenderness should ask, The chastening stripes must cleanse them all; But for our blunders oh, in shame Before the eyes of heaven we fall. "Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will; but Thou, O Lord, The room was hushed; in silence rose 5 10 Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: "Now must we pray, 15 Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?" "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"' "My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly pale and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say, at break of day: 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!' 20 25 5 They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Should I and all my men fall dead. For God from these dread seas is gone. They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: "This mad sea shows his teeth tonight. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one word; Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck, A light! a light! a light! a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn; WESTWARD HO! What strength! what strife! what rude unrest! |