My arm is impotent; what worth to trim
The bending sails! Look, I shall quaff a cup
To Fate, while the wild ocean swallows up
The shipwrecked youth, the man who lives in him."
She said: "But thou hast valour, dear, too much
For such as this; thou hast grave embassy,
Given with thy birth; would'st thou thine honour smutch
With coward failing? Dear son, breast the sea."
Firm-purposed from that hour, through wind and wave,
I brought my message till thou shelter gave.
WHEN FIRST I SAW THEE
When first I saw thee, lady, straightway came
The thought that somehow, somewhere, destiny,
Through blinding paths of happiness or blame,
Would bend my way of life, my soul to thee.
But then I put it from me: was not I
A wanderer? To-morrow I should be
In other lands-beside another sea;
Nay, you were but a star-gleam in my sky.
And so I came not in your sight awhile,
You gave no thought, and I passed not away;
But like some traveller in a deep defile
I walked in darkness even through the day:
Until at last the hands of Circumstance
Pointed the hour that waked me from my trance.
THE FATES LAUGH
I did not will this thing. I set my face
Towards duty and my art; I was alone.
How knew I thou shouldst roll away the stone
From hopes long buried, by thy tender grace?