Chapter I: Travelled Among Unknown Men

I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream! 5
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire; 10
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field 15
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

W. WORDSWORTH.

WHERE LIES THE LAND

Where lies the land to which yon ship must go? Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day, Festively she puts forth in trim array; Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow? What boots the inquiry?--Neither friend nor foe 5 She cares for; let her travel where she may, She finds familiar names, a beaten way Ever before her, and a wind to blow. Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark? And, almost as it was when ships were rare, 10 (From time to time, like pilgrims, here and there Crossing the waters) doubt, and something dark, Of the old sea some reverential fear, Is with me at thy farewell, joyous bark!

W. WORDSWORTH.

A PASSER-BY

Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?
Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, 5
When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,
Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest
In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.

I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,
Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air: 10
I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,
And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,
Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare;
Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped, grandest
Peak, that is over the feathery palms more fair 15
Than thou, so upright, so stately, and still thou standest.

And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless,
I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. 20
But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.

R. BRIDGES.

AT CARNAC

Far on its rocky knoll descried Saint Michael's chapel cuts the sky. I climbed;--beneath me, bright and wide, Lay the lone coast of Brittany.

Bright in the sunset, weird and still 5 It lay beside the Atlantic wave, As if the wizard Merlin's will Yet charmed it from his forest grave.

Behind me on their grassy sweep, Bearded with lichen, scrawled and grey, 10 The giant stones of Carnac sleep, In the mild evening of the May.

No priestly stern procession now Streams through their rows of pillars old; No victims bleed, no Druids bow; 15 Sheep make the furze-grown aisles their fold.

From bush to bush the cuckoo flies, The orchis red gleams everywhere; Gold broom with furze in blossom vies, The blue-bells perfume all the air. 20

And o'er the glistening, lonely land, Rise up, all round, the Christian spires. The church of Carnac, by the strand, Catches the westering sun's last fires.

And there across the watery way, 25 See, low above the tide at flood, The sickle-sweep of Quiberon bay Whose beach once ran with loyal blood!

And beyond that, the Atlantic wide!-- All round, no soul, no boat, no hail! 30 But, on the horizon's verge descried, Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail!