I am the word that lovers leave unsaid,

The eloquence of ardent lips grown mute,

The mourning mother's heart-cry for her dead,

The flower of faith that grows to unseen fruit.

I am the speech of prophets when their eyes

Behold some splendid vision of the soul;

The song of morning stars, the hills' replies,

The far call of the immaterial pole.

And, since I must be mateless, I shall win

One boon beyond the meed of common clay:

My life shall end where other lives begin,

And live when other lives have passed away.

[61]

[61]

COLUMBUS' LAST VOYAGE.

(Written on the exhumation and reburial in Spain of the bones of Christopher Columbus.)

Once more upon the ocean's heaving breast

He lays his head, not like the lover bold

Who in the brave, chivalric days of old

Wooed from her lips the secret of the West,

 Prev. P 59/90 next