Would that it were mine to govern yon large wonder of our time:
Such a life were worth the living! thus to sail through every clime,
From a hundred spicy shorelands bearing treasures manifold;
Foremost to achieve discovery of the peerless lands of gold;
Or to thrid the crashing hummocks for the silent Northern Pole,
And those solemn open waters that beyond the ice-plains roll,—
Cold and shining sea of ages! like a silver fillet set
On the Earth’s eternal forehead, for her bridal coronet.
Or to close with some tall frigate, for my country and the right,
Gunwale grinding into gunwale through the rolling cloud of fight.