A time-worn sage without a home,
A man of dim and tearful sight,
Up from the hallowed haven clomb
In lowly longing for the height.
He loiters on a half-way rock
To hear the waves that pant and seethe,
Which give the beats of Nature's clock
To mortals conscious that they breathe.
The buxom waves may nurse a boat,
May well nigh seem to soothe and lull
The crying of a tethered goat,
The trouble of a searching gull.
There might be comfort in the tide,
There might be Lethe in the surge,
Could they but hint that oceans hide,
That pangs absolve, bereavements purge.
The thinker, not despairing yet,
Upraises limbs not wholly stiff,
Half envying him that draws the net,
Half proud to combat with the cliff.
He groans, but soon around his lips
Tear-channels bend into a smile,
He thinks "They're saying in the ships
I'm looking for the hidden isle.
I climb but as my humours lead,
My thoughts are mazed, my will is faint,
Yon men who see me roam, they need
No Lethe-fount, no shriving saint."
Good faith! can we believe, or feign
Believing, that such lands exist
Through ages drenched with blotting rain,
For ever folded in the mist?
Maybe some babe by sirens clothed
Swam thence, and brought report thereof.
Some hopeful virgin just betrothed
Braved the incredulous pilot's scoff;
And murmuring to a friendly lute,
While greybeards snored and beldames laughed,
Some minstrel-corsair made pursuit
Along the moon's white hunting-shaft;
Along the straight illumined track
The bride, the singer, and the child
Fled, far from sceptics, came not back,
Engulped? Who knows? perhaps enisled.
Now were there such another crew,
Now would their bark make room for me,
Now were that island false or true,
I'd go, forgetting, with the three.