That sea was greater than we knew.
Week after week the empty round
Went with us; the Unchanging grew,
And we were headed for that bound.
How we came there we could not tell.
Seven storms had piled us im that peace,
Put us in check and barred us well
With seven walls of seven seas.
As one may vanish in a day
In some untravelled fold of space
And there pursue his patient way
Yet never come to any place
Though following still by star and sun,
For every chart is rased and furled,
And he out of this world has run
And wanders now another world,
So we by line and compass steered
And conned the book of sun and star,
Yet where it should no sign appeared
To tell us, You are there or there,
Familiar landfall, slender mast:
We on the ocean were alone.
The busy lanes where fleets had passed
Showed us no sail except our own.
Still south we steered day after day
And only water lay around
As if the land had stolen away
Or sprawled upon the ocean ground.
The sun by day, the stars by night
Had only us to look upon,
Bent on us their collected light,
And followed on as we went on.
Sometimes in utter wonder lost
That loneliness like this could be
We stood and stared until almost
We saw no longer sky or sea,
But only the frame of time and space,
An empty floor, a vacant wall,
And on that blank no line to trace
Movement, if we moved at all.
What thoughts came then! Sometimes it seemed
We long had passed the living by
On other seas and only dreamed
This sea, this journey and this sky,
Or traced a ghostly parallel
That limned the land but could not merge,
And haven and home and harbour bell
Were just behind the horizon verge,
Or the world itself had ended so
Without a cry, and we should sail
To and fro, to and fro,
Long past the lightning and the gale.
O then what crowding fantasies
Poured in from empty sea and sky!
At night we heard the whispering quays,
Line after line, slide softly by.
Delusions in the silent noon;
Fields in the hollows of the waves;
Or spread beneath the yellow moon,
A land of harvests and of graves.
The soft sea-sounds beguiled our ear.
We thought we walked by mountain mills
Or listened half’a night to hear
The spring wind hunting on the hills.
And faces, faces, faces came
Across the salt sea-desert air,
And rooms in which a candle flame
Made everything renowned and rare.
The words we knew lke our right hand,
Mountain and valley, meadow and grove,
Composed a legendary land
Rich with the broken tombs of love.
Delusion or truth? We were content
Thenceforth to sail the harmless seas
Safe past the Fate and the Accident,
And called a blessing on that peace.
And blessing, we ourselves were blest,
Lauded the loss that brought our gain,
Sang the tumultuous world to rest,
And wishless called it back again.
For loss was then our only joy,
Privation of all, fulfilled desire,
The world our treasure and our toy
In destitution clean as fire.
Our days were then—I cannot tell
How we were then fulfilled and crowned
With life as in a parable,
And sweetly as gods together bound.
Delusion and dream! Our captain knew
Compass and clock had never yet
Failed him; the sum and stars were true.
The mark was there that we should hut.
And it rose up, a sullen stain
Flawing the crystal firmament.
A wound! We felt the familiar pain
And knew the place to which we were sent.