I am the soul that flouts the overseas,
That curbs the wrenching billow-bits of Time,
My prow first pierced the strange Hesperides,
And that first keel of mine,—how deep in slime!
(O ye who slew by sunrise, mark ye now:)
Mine are the lips which Death’s grey lips have kissed
Deeply and often round his loving-cup;
I see his beckoning eyrie draped in mist
In every cloud that midnight conjures up.
(Yet, mark ye, Fear hath never stained my brow.)