COLUMBUS.
Steer on, bold sailor! Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
Yet ever, ever to the West, for there the coast must lie,
And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye;
Yea, trust the guiding God—and go along the floating grave,
Though hid till now—yet now, behold the New World o'er the wave.
With Genius Nature ever stands in solemn union still,
And ever what the one foretells the other shall fulfill.
Señor Emilio Castelar, the talented Spanish orator and statesman, in the fourth of a series of most erudite and interesting articles upon Christopher Columbus, in the Century Magazine for August, 1892, thus masterly refers to the above passages:
He who pens these words, on reading the lines of the great poet Schiller upon Columbus, found therein a philosophical thought, as original as profound, calling upon the discoverer to press ever onward, for a new world will surely arise for him, inasmuch as whatever is promised by Genius is always fulfilled by Nature. To cross the seas of Life, naught suffices save the bark of Faith. In that bark the undoubting Columbus set sail, and at his journey's end found a new world. Had that world not then existed, God would have created it in the solitude of the Atlantic, if to no other end than to reward the faith and constancy of that great man. America was discovered because Columbus possessed a living faith in his ideal, in himself, and in his God.