In the crowd that thronged the pierhead, come to see their
    friends take ship
For new ventures in seafaring, when the hawsers were let slip
And we swung out in the current, with good-byes on every lip,

Midst the waving caps and kisses, as we dropped down with the
    tide
And the faces blurred and faded, last of all your hand I spied
Signalling, Farewell!  Good fortune!  then my heart rose up and
    cried,

"While the world holds one such comrade, whose sweet dur-
    able regard
Would so speed my safe departure, lest home-leaving should be
    hard,
What care I who keeps the ferry, whether Charon or Cunard!"

Then we cleared the bar, and laid her on the course, the thou-
    sand miles
From the Hook to the Bahamas, from midwinter to the isles
Where frost never laid a finger, and eternal summer smiles.

Three days through the surly storm-beat, while the surf-heads
    threshed and flew,
And the rolling mountains thundered to the trample of the
    screw,
The black liner heaved and scuffled and strained on, as if she
    knew.

On the fourth, the round blue morning sparkled there, all light
    and breeze,
Clean and tenuous as a bubble down from two immensities,
Shot and colored with sheer sunlight and the magic of those
    seas.

In that bright new world of wonder, it was life enough to laze
All day underneath the awnings, and through half-shut eyes
    to gaze
At the marvel of the sea-blue; and I faltered for a phrase

Should half give you the impression, tell you how the very tint
Justified your finest daring, as if Nature gave the hint,
"Plodders, see Imagination set his pallet without stint!"

Colbalt, gobelin, and azure, turquoise, sapphire, indigo,
Changing from the spectral bluish of a shadow upon snow
To the deep of Canton china,--one unfathomable glow.

And the flying fish,--to see them in a scurry lift and flee,
Silvery as the foam they sprang from, fragile people of the sea,
Whom their heart's great aspiration for a moment had set free.

From the dim and cloudy ocean, thunder-centred, rosy-verged,
At the lord sun's Sursum Corda, as implicit impulse urged,
Frail as vapor, fine as music, these bright, spirit-things emerged;

Like those flocks of small white snowbirds we have seen start
    up before
Our brisk walk in winter weather by the snowy Scituate shore;
And the tiny shining sea-folk brought you back to me once more.

So we ran down Abaco; and passing that tall sentinel
Black against the sundown, sighted, as the sudden twilight fell,
Nassau light; and the warm darkness breathed on us from
    breeze and swell.

Stand-by bell and stop of engine; clank of anchor going down;
And we're riding in the roadstead off a twinkling-lighted town,
Low dark shore with bloom of breakers and white beach the
    palm-trees crown.

In the soft wash of the sea air, on the long swing of the tide,
Here for once the dream came true, the voyage ended close
    beside
The Hesperides in moonlight on mid-ocean where they ride.

And those Hesperidian joy-lands were not strange to  you and
    me.
Just beyond the lost horizon, every time we looked to sea
From Testudo, there they floated, looming plain as plain could
    be.

Who believed us?  "Myth and fable are a science in our time."
"Never saw the sea that color."  "Never heard of such a rhyme."
Well, we've proved it, prince of idlers,--knowledge wrong and
    faith sublime.

Right were you to follow fancy, give the vaguer instinct room
In a heaven of clear color, where the spirit might assume
All her elemental beauty, past the fact of sky or bloom.

Paint the vision, not the view,--the touch that bids the sense
    good-bye,
Lifting spirit at a bound beyond the frontiers of the eye,
To superb unguessed dominions of the soul's credulity.

Never yet was painter, poet, born content with things that
    are,--
Must divine from every beauty other beauties greater far,
Till the arc of truth be circled, and her lantern blaze, a star.

This alone is art's ambition, to arrest with form and hue
Dominant ungrasped ideals, known to credence, hid from
    view,
In a mimic of creation,--To the life, yet fairer too,--

Where the soul may take her pleasure, contemplate perfection's
    plan,
And returning bring the tidings of his heritage to man,--
News of continents uncharted she has stood tiptoe to scan.

So she fires his gorgeous fancy with a cadence, with a line,
Till the artist wakes within him, and the toiler grows divine,
Shaping the rough world about him nearer to some fair de-
    sign.

Every heart must have its Indies,--an inheritance unclaimed
In the unsubstantial treasure of a province never named,
Loved and longed for through a lifetime, dull, laborious, and
    unfamed,

Never wholly disillusioned. Spiritus, read, hoeres sit
Patrioe quoe tristia nescit.  This alone the great king writ
O'er the tomb of her he cherished in this fair world she must
    quit.

Love in one farewell forever, taking counsel to implore
Best of human benedictions on its dead, could ask no more.
The heart's country for a dwelling, this at last is all our lore.

But the fairies at your cradle gave you craft to build a home
In the wide bright world of color, with the cunning of a gnome;
Blessed you so above your fellows of the tribe that still must
    roam.

Still across the world they go, tormented by a strange unrest,
And the unabiding spirit knocks forever at their breast,
Bidding them away to fortune in some undiscovered West;

While at home you sit and call the Orient up at your command,
Master of the iris seas and Prospero of the purple land.
Listen, here was one world-corner matched the cunning of
    your hand.

Not, my friend, since we were children, and all wonder-tales
    were true,--
Jason, Hengest, Hiawatha, fairy prince or pirate crew,--
Was there ever such a landing in a country strange and new?

Up the harbor where there gathered, fought and revelled many
    a year,
Swarthy Spaniard, lost Lucayan, Loyalist, and Buccaneer,
"Once upon a time" was now, and "far across the sea" was here.

Tropic moonlight, in great floods and fathoms pouring through
    the trees
On a ground as white as sea-froth its fantastic traceries,
While the poincianas, rustling like the rain, moved in the
    breeze,

Showed a city, coral-streeted, melting in the mellow shine,
Built of creamstone and enchantment, fairy work in every line,
In a velvet atmosphere that bids the heart her haste resign.

Thanks to Julian Hospitator, saint of travellers by sea,
Roving minstrels and all boatmen,--just such vagabonds as
    we,--
On the shaded wharf we landed, rich in leisure, hale and free.

What more would you for God's creatures, but the little tide of
    sleep?
In a clean white room I wakened, saw the careless sunlight peep
Through the roses at the window, lay and listened to the creep

Of the soft wind in the shutters, heard the palm-tops stirring
    high,
And that strange mysterious shuffle of the slipshod foot go by.
In a world all glad with color, gladdest of all things was I;

In a quiet convent garden; tranquil as the day is long,
Here to sit without intrusion of the world or strife or wrong,--
Watch the lizards chase each other, and the green bird make his
    song;

Warmed and freshened, lulled yet quickened in that Paradisal
    air,
Motherly and uncapricious, healing every hurt or care,
Wooing body, mind, and spirit firmly back to strong and fair;

By the Angelus reminded, silence waits the touch of sound,
As the soul waits her awaking to some Gloria profound;
Till the mighty Southern Cross in lighted at the day's last bound.

And if ever your fair fortune make you good Saint Vincent's
    guest,
At his door take leave of trouble, welcomed to his decent rest,
Of his ordered peace partaker, by his solace healed and blessed;

Where this flowered cloister garden hidden from the passing
    view,
Lies behind its yellow walls in prayer the holy hours through;
And beyond, that fairy harbor, floored in malachite and blue

In that old white-streeted city gladness has her way at last;
Under burdens finely poised, and with a freedom unsurpassed,
Move the naked-footed bearers in the blue day deep and vast.

This is Bay Street broad and low-built, basking in its quiet trade;
Here the sponging fleet is anchored; here shell trinkets are dis-
    played;
Here the cable news is posted daily; here the market's made,

With its oranges from Andros, heaps of yam and tamarind,
Red-juiced shadducks from the Current, ripened in the long
    trade-wind,
Gaudy fish from their sea-gardens, yellow-tailed and azure-
    finned.

Here a group of diving boys in bronze and ivory, bright and
    slim,
Sparkling copper in the high noon, dripping loin-cloth, polished
    limb,
Poised a moment, and then plunged in that deep daylight green
    and dim.

Here the great rich Spanish laurels spread across the public
    square
Their dense solemn shade; and near by, half within the open
    glare,
Mannerly in their clean cottons, knots of blacks are waiting
    there

By the court-house, where a magistrate is hearing cases through,
Dealing justice prompt and level, as the sturdy English do,--
One more tent-peg of the Empire, holding that great shelter
    true.

Last the picture from the town's end, palmed and foam-
    fringed through the cane,
Where the gorgeous sunset yellows pour aloft and spill and stain
The pure amethystine sea and far faint islands of the main.

Loveliest of the Lucayas, peace be yours till time be done!
In the gray North I shall see you, with your white streets in
    the sun,
Old pink walls and purple gateways, where the lizards bask and
    run,

Where the great hibiscus blossoms in their scarlet loll and
    glow,
And the idling gay bandannas through the hot noons come
    and go,
While the ever stirring sea-wind sways the palm-tops to and
    fro.

Far from stress and storm forever, dream behind  your jalousies,
While the long white lines of breakers crumble on your reefs
    and keys,
And the crimson oleanders burn against the peacock seas.