THE PATIENCE OF COLUMBUS.
From "Columbus," a poem by the same author. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Chances have laws as fixed as planets have;
And disappointment's dry and bitter root,
Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool
Of the world's scorn are the right mother-milk
To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind,
And break a pathway to those unknown realms
That in the earth's broad shadow lie enthralled;
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts;
These are their stay, and when the leaden world
Sets its hard face against their fateful thought,
And brute strength, like a scornful conqueror,
Clangs his huge mace down in the other scale,
The inspired soul but flings his patience in,
And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe—
One faith against a whole world's unbelief,
One soul against the flesh of all mankind.
I know not when this hope enthralled me first,
But from my boyhood up I loved to hear
The tall pine forests of the Apennine
Murmur their hoary legends of the sea;
Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld
The sudden dark of tropic night shut down
O'er the huge whisper of great watery wastes.
I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale
Of happy Atlantis, and heard Björne's keel
Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore.
Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear
The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams,
O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night
My heart flies on before me as I sail;
Far on I see my life-long enterprise!
Lytton (Lord). See post, "Schiller."