II
Fair thro' the walls of his dungeon,
—What were the stones but a shadow?—
Streamed the light of the rapture,
The lure that he followed of old,
The dream of his old companions,
The vision of El Dorado,
The fleet that they never could capture,
The City of Sunset-gold.
III
Yet did they sail the seas
And, dazed with exceeding wonder,
Straight through the sunset-glory
Plunge into the dawn:
Leaving their home behind them,
By a road of splendour and thunder,
They came to their home in amazement
Simply by sailing on.
NEW POEMS
A WATCHWORD OF THE FLEET
[For purposes of recognition at night a small squadron of Elizabethan ships, crossing the Atlantic, adopted as a watchword the sentence: Before the world—was God.]