XLVI.

We could not pray together midst the deep,

Which, like a floor of sapphire, round us lay,

Through days of splendour, nights too bright for sleep,

Soft, solemn, holy! We were on our way

Unto the mighty Cordillera land,

With men whom tales of that world’s golden strand

Had lured to leave their vines. Oh! who shall say

What thoughts rose in us, when the tropic sky

Touch’d all its molten seas with sunset’s alchemy!