10 Best Famous Galleys Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Galleys poems. This is a select list of the best famous Galleys poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Galleys poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of galleys poems.

• All Famous Galleys Poems

 To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so 
Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves, 
Back of old-storied spires and architraves 
To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day 
Flooded with gold some domed metropolis, 
Between new towers to waken and new bliss 
Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:

These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates, 
Coming to market with his morning load, 
The peasant found him early on his road 
To greet the sunrise at the city-gates,---

There where the meadows waken in its rays, 
Golden with mist, and the great roads commence, 
And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense, 
Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.

White dunes that breaking show a strip of sea, 
A plowman and his team against the blue 
Swiss pastures musical with cowbells, too, 
And poplar-lined canals in Picardie,

And coast-towns where the vultures back and forth
Sail in the clear depths of the tropic sky,
And swallows in the sunset where they fly
Over gray Gothic cities in the north,

And the wine-cellar and the chorus there,
The dance-hall and a face among the crowd,---
Were all delights that made him sing aloud 
For joy to sojourn in a world so fair.

Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell 
Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged. 
Before him tireless to applaud it surged 
The sweet interminable spectacle.

And like the west behind a sundown sea 
Shone the past joys his memory retraced, 
And bright as the blue east he always faced 
Beckoned the loves and joys that were to be.

From every branch a blossom for his brow 
He gathered, singing down Life's flower-lined road, 
And youth impelled his spirit as he strode 
Like winged Victory on the galley's prow.

That Loveliness whose being sun and star,
Green Earth and dawn and amber evening robe,
That lamp whereof the opalescent globe
The season's emulative splendors are,

That veiled divinity whose beams transpire 
From every pore of universal space,
As the fair soul illumes the lovely face---
That was his guest, his passion, his desire.

His heart the love of Beauty held as hides 
One gem most pure a casket of pure gold. 
It was too rich a lesser thing to bold;
It was not large enough for aught besides.

 White founts falling in the Courts of the sun, 
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; 
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, 
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard; 
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips; 
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. 
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, 
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, 
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, 
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross. 
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; 
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; 
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, 
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun. 

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, 
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, 
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, 
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall, 
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, 
That once went singing southward when all the world was young. 
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, 
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade. 
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, 
Don John of Austria is going to the war, 
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold 
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold, 
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, 
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes. 
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, 
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, 
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. 
Love-light of Spain--hurrah! 
Death-light of Africa! 
Don John of Austria 
Is riding to the sea. 

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, 
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.) 
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees, 
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas. 
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease, 
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees; 
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring 
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing. 
Giants and the Genii, 
Multiplex of wing and eye, 
Whose strong obedience broke the sky 
When Solomon was king. 

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, 
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn; 
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea 
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be, 
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, 
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; 
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,-- 
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. 
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, 
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, 
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, 
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west. 
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, 
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done. 
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know 
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago: 
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate; 
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate! 
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, 
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth." 
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, 
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.) 
Sudden and still--hurrah! 
Bolt from Iberia! 
Don John of Austria 
Is gone by Alcalar. 

St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north 
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) 
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift 
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift. 
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; 
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone; 
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes, 
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, 
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, 
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, 
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,-- 
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. 
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse 
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, 
Trumpet that sayeth ha! 
Domino gloria! 
Don John of Austria 
Is shouting to the ships. 

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck 
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.) 
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, 
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. 
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, 
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, 
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey 
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, 
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, 
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. 
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed-- 
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid. 
Gun upon gun, ha! ha! 
Gun upon gun, hurrah! 
Don John of Austria 
Has loosed the cannonade. 

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, 
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.) 
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year, 
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear. 
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea 
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; 
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, 
They veil the plum?d lions on the galleys of St. Mark; 
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, 
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs, 
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines 
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. 
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung 
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. 
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on 
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon. 
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell 
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, 
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign-- 
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) 
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, 
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop, 
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, 
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, 
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea 
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty. 

Vivat Hispania! 
Domino Gloria! 
Don John of Austria 
Has set his people free! 

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath 
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) 
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, 
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, 
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... 
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

 Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen
Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England's wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The stars of England's chivalry.

The brazen-throated clarion blows
Across the Pathan's reedy fen,
And the high steeps of Indian snows
Shake to the tread of armed men.

And many an Afghan chief, who lies
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,
Clutches his sword in fierce surmise
When on the mountain-side he sees

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
To tell how he hath heard afar
The measured roll of English drums
Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet
Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,
England with bare and bloody feet
Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height,
Grey pillar of the Indian sky,
Where saw'st thou last in clanging flight
Our winged dogs of Victory?

The almond-groves of Samarcand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
The grave white-turbaned merchants go:

And on from thence to Ispahan,
The gilded garden of the sun,
Whence the long dusty caravan
Brings cedar wood and vermilion;

And that dread city of Cabool
Set at the mountain's scarped feet,
Whose marble tanks are ever full
With water for the noonday heat:

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar
A little maid Circassian
Is led, a present from the Czar
Unto some old and bearded khan, -

Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;
But the sad dove, that sits alone
In England - she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean
To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
Down in some treacherous black ravine,
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

And many a moon and sun will see
The lingering wistful children wait
To climb upon their father's knee;
And in each house made desolate

Pale women who have lost their lord
Will kiss the relics of the slain -
Some tarnished epaulette - some sword -
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

For not in quiet English fields
Are these, our brothers, lain to rest,
Where we might deck their broken shields
With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls,
And many in the Afghan land,
And many where the Ganges falls
Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie,
And others in the seas which are
The portals to the East, or by
The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep!
O silence of the sunless day!
O still ravine! O stormy deep!
Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

And thou whose wounds are never healed,
Whose weary race is never won,
O Cromwell's England! must thou yield
For every inch of ground a son?

Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,
Change thy glad song to song of pain;
Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,
And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore
Possess the flower of English land -
Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,
Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

What profit now that we have bound
The whole round world with nets of gold,
If hidden in our heart is found
The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride,
Pine-forest-like, on every main?
Ruin and wreck are at our side,
Grim warders of the House of Pain.

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?
Where is our English chivalry?
Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,
And sobbing waves their threnody.

O loved ones lying far away,
What word of love can dead lips send!
O wasted dust! O senseless clay!
Is this the end! is this the end!

Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead
To vex their solemn slumber so;
Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,
Up the steep road must England go,

Yet when this fiery web is spun,
Her watchmen shall descry from far
The young Republic like a sun
Rise from these crimson seas of war.

 I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Inver Amergin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his fading head.
'He drives away the Northern cold.'
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the pirates by the deep,
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
These hands won many a torque of gold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

But slowly, as I shouting slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire,
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
I laughed aloud and hurried on
By rocky shore and rushy fen;
I laughed because birds fluttered by,
And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,
And rushes waved and waters rolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees,
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-coloured trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
I wander on, and wave my hands,
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
The grey wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;
The hares run by me growing bold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

I came upon a little town
That slumbered in the harvest moon,
And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
Murmuring, to a fitful tune,
How I have followed, night and day,
A tramping of tremendous feet,
And saw where this old tympan lay
Deserted on a doorway seat,
And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some inhuman misery
Our married voices wildly trolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

I sang how, when day's toil is done,
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odours through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with sound like falling dew
The whirling and the wandering fire;
But lift a mournful ulalu,
For the kind wires are torn and still,
And I must wander wood and hill
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.

 There was a strife 'twixt man and maid--
Oh, that was at the birth of time!
But what befell 'twixt man and maid,
Oh, that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas "Sweet, I must not bide with you,"
And, "Love, I cannot bide alone";
For both were young and both were true.
And both were hard as the nether stone.

Beware the man who's crossed in love;
 For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
 And lend him all the Continent.

Your patience, Sirs. The Devil took me up
To the burned mountain over Sicily
(Fit place for me) and thence I saw my Earth--
(Not all Earth's splendour, 'twas beyond my need--)
And that one spot I love--all Earth to me,
And her I love, my Heaven. What said I?
My love was safe from all the powers of Hell-
For you--e'en you--acquit her of my guilt--
But Sula, nestling by our sail--specked sea,
My city, child of mine, my heart, my home--
Mine and my pride--evil might visit there!
It was for Sula and her naked port,
Prey to the galleys of the Algerine,
Our city Sula, that I drove my price--
For love of Sula and for love of her.
The twain were woven--gold on sackcloth--twined
Past any sundering till God shall judge
The evil and the good.
Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan
 brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the
 Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of
 the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the
 East."

There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay
When the artist's hand is potting it.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay --
When the poet's pad is blotting it.
There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line
At the Royal Acade-my;
But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese
When it comes to a well-made Lie--

 To a quite unwreckable Lie,
 To a most impeccable Lie!
 To a water-right, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock,
 steel-faced Lie!
 Not a private handsome Lie, 
 But a pair-and-brougham Lie,
 Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting
 And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.

 When a lover hies abroad
 Looking for his love,
 Azrael smiling sheathes his sword,
 Heaven smiles above.
 Earth and sea
 His servants be,
 And to lesser compass round,
 That his love be sooner found!

 We meet in an evil land
 That is near to the gates of Hell.
 I wait for thy command
 To serve, to speed or withstand.
 And thou sayest I do not well?

 Oh Love, the flowers so red
 Are only tongues of flame,
 The earth is full of the dead,
 The new-killed, restless dead.
 There is danger beneath and o'erhead,
 And I guard thy gates in fear
 Of words thou canst not hear,
 Of peril and jeopardy,
 Of signs thou canst not see--
. And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?

 This I saw when the rites were done,
 And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone,
 And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone--
 Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see,
 And the Gods of the East made mouths at me.

 Beat off in our last fight were we?
 The greater need to seek the sea.
 For Fortune changeth as the moon
 To caravel and picaroon.
 Then Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho!
 Whichever wind may meetest blow.
 Our quarry sails on either sea,
 Fat prey for such bold lads as we,
 And every sun-dried buccaneer
 Must hand and reef and watch and steer,
 And bear great wrath of sea and sky
 Before the plate-ships wallow by.
 Now, as our tall bows take the foam,
 Let no man turn his heart to home,
 Save to desire plunder more
 And larger warehouse for his store,
 When treasure won from Santos Bay
 Shall make our sea-washed village gay.

 Because I sought it far from men,
 In deserts and alone,
 I found it burning overhead,
 The jewel of a Throne.

 Because I sought--I sought it so
 And spent my days to find--
 It blazed one moment ere it left
 The blacker night behind.

 We be the Gods of the East--
 Older than all--
 Masters of Mourning and Feast--
 How shall we fall?

Will they gape for the husks that ye proffer
 Or yearn to your song
And we--have we nothing to offer
 Who ruled them so long--
In the fume of incense, the clash of the cymbals, the blare of 
 the conch and the gong?
Over the strife of the schools
 Low the day burns--
Back with the kine from the pools
 Each one returns
To the life that he knows where the altar-flame glows and the
 tulsi is trimmed in the urns.

 Although thy hand and faith, and good works too,
Have sealed thy love which nothing should undo,
Yea though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirm thy love; yet much, much I fear thee.
Women are like the Arts, forced unto to none,
Open to all searchers, unprized if unknown.
If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,
Another fowler using these means, as I,
May catch the same bird; and, as these things be,
Women are made for men, not him, nor me.
Foxes and goats, all beasts, change when they please,
Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these,
Be bound to one man, and did Nature then
Idly make tham apter t' endure than men?
They're our clogs, not their own; if a man be
Chained to a galley, yet the galley's free;
Who hath a plough-land casts all his seedcorn there,
And yet allows his ground more corn should bear;
Though Danuby into the sea must flow,
The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po.
By Nature, which gave it, this liberty
Thou lov'st, but Oh! canst thou love it and me?
Likeness glues love: and if that thou so do,
To make us like and love, must I change too?
More than thy hate, I hate't; rather let me
Allow her change than change as oft as she,
And so not teach, but force my opinion
To love not any one, nor every one.
To live in one land is captivity,
To run all countries, a wild roguery;
Waters stink soon if in one place they bide,
And in the vast sea are more purified:
But when they kiss one bank, and leaving this
Never look back, but the next bank do kiss,
Then are they purest. Change is the nursery
Of music, joy, life, and eternity.

 Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen
Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!
Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
Because rich gold in every town is seen,
And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride
Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride
Beneath one flag of red and white and green.
O Fair and Strong! O Strong and Fair in vain!
Look southward where Rome's desecrated town
Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!
Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing?
Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,
And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.

VENICE.

 Henry in Ireland to Bill underground:
Rest well, who worked so hard, who made a good sound
constantly, for so many years:
your high-jinks delighted the continents & our ears:
you had so many girls your life was a triumph
and you loved your one wife.

At dawn you rose & wrote-”the books poured forth-”
you delivered infinite babies, in one great birth-”
and your generosity
to juniors made you deeply loved, deeply:
if envy was a Henry trademark, he would envy you,
especially the being through.

Too many journeys lie for him ahead,
too many galleys & page-proofs to be read,
he would like to lie down
in your sweet silence, to whom was not denied
the mysterious late excellence which is the crown
of our trials & our last bride.

 ("La lune était sereine.") 
 
 {X., September, 1828.} 


 Bright shone the merry moonbeams dancing o'er the wave; 
 At the cool casement, to the evening breeze flung wide, 
 Leans the Sultana, and delights to watch the tide, 
 With surge of silvery sheen, yon sleeping islets lave. 
 
 From her hand, as it falls, vibrates the light guitar. 
 She listens—hark! that sound that echoes dull and low. 
 Is it the beat upon the Archipelago 
 Of some long galley's oar, from Scio bound afar? 
 
 Is it the cormorants, whose black wings, one by one, 
 Cut the blue wave that o'er them breaks in liquid pearls? 
 Is it some hovering sprite with whistling scream that hurls 
 Down to the deep from yon old tower a loosened stone? 
 
 Who thus disturbs the tide near the seraglio? 
 'Tis no dark cormorants that on the ripple float, 
 'Tis no dull plume of stone—no oars of Turkish boat, 
 With measured beat along the water creeping slow. 
 
 'Tis heavy sacks, borne each by voiceless dusky slaves; 
 And could you dare to sound the depths of yon dark tide, 
 Something like human form would stir within its side. 
 Bright shone the merry moonbeams dancing o'er the wave. 
 
 JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN. 


 

 The God of Fair Beginnings
 Hath prospered here my hand --
The cargoes of my lading,
 And the keels of my command.
For out of many ventures
 That sailed with hope as high,
My own have made the better trade,
 And Admiral am I.

To me my King's much honour,
 To me my people's love --
To me the pride of Princes
 And power all pride above;
To me the shouting cities,
 To me the mob's refrain: --
"Who knows not noble Valdez
 "Hath never heard of Spain."

But I remember comrades --
 Old playmates on new seas --
Whenas we traded orpiment
 Among the savages --
A thousand leagues to south'ard
 And thirty years removed --
They knew nor noble Valdez,
 But me they knew and loved.

Then they that found good liquor,
 They drank it not alone,
And they that found fair plunder,
 They told us every one,
About our chosen islands
 Or secret shoals between,
When, weary from far voyage,
 We gathered to careen.

There burned our breaming-fagots
 All pale along the shore:
There rose our worn pavilions --
 A sail above an oar:
As flashed each yeaming anchor
 Through mellow seas afire,
So swift our careless captains
 Rowed each to his desire.

Where lay our loosened harness?
 Where turned our naked feet?
Whose tavern 'mid the palm-trees?
 What quenchings of what heat?
Oh, fountain in the desert!
 Oh, cistern in the waste!
Oh, bread we ate in secret!
 Oh, cup we spilled in haste!

The youth new-taught of longing,
 The widow curbed and wan,
The goodwife proud at season,
 And the maid aware of man --
All souls unslaked, consuming,
 Defrauded in delays,
Desire not more their quittance
 Than I those forfeit days!

I dreamed to wait my pleasure
 Unchanged my spring would bide:
Wherefore, to wait my pleasure,
 I put my spring aside
Till, first in face of Fortune,
 And last in mazed disdain,
I made Diego Valdez
 High Admiral of Spain.

Then walked no wind 'neath Heaven
 Nor surge that did not aid --
I dared extreme occasion,
 Nor ever one betrayed.
They wrought a deeper treason --
 (Led seas that served my needs!)
They sold Diego Valdez
 To bondage of great deeds.

The tempest flung me seaward,
 And pinned and bade me hold
The course I might not alter --
 And men esteemed me bold!
The calms embayed my quarry,
 The fog-wreath sealed his eyes;
The dawn-wind brought my topsails --
 And men esteemed me wise!

Yet, 'spite my tyrant triumphs,
 Bewildered, dispossessed --
My dream held I beore me
 My vision of my rest;
But, crowned by Fleet and People,
 And bound by King and Pope --
Stands here Diego Valdez
 To rob me of my hope.

No prayer of mine shall move him.
 No word of his set free
The Lord of Sixty Pennants
 And the Steward of the Sea.
His will can loose ten thousand
 To seek their loves again --
But not Diego Valdez,
 High Admiral of Spain.

There walks no wind 'neath Heaven
 Nor wave that shall restore
The old careening riot
 And the clamorous, crowded shore --
The fountain in the desert,
 The cistern in the waste,
The bread we ate in secret,
 The cup we spilled in haste.

Now call I to my Captains --
 For council fly the sign --
Now leap their zealous galleys,
 Twelve-oared, across the brine.
To me the straiter prison,
 To me the heavier chain --
To me Diego Valdez,
 High Admiral of Spain!