The captain kept her deck. He stood
A Hercules among his men;
And now he watched the sea, and then
He peered as if to pierce the wood.
He now looked back, as if pursued,
Now swept the sea with glass, as though
He fled or feared some hidden foe.
Swift sailing up the river’s mouth,
Swift tacking north, swift tacking south,
He touched the overhanging wood;
He tacked his ship; his tall black mast
Touched tree-top mosses as he passed;
He touched the steep shore where she stood.
XIX.
Her hands still clasped as if in prayer,
Sweet prayer set to silentness;
Her sun-browned throat uplifted, bare
And beautiful.
Her eager face
Illumed with love and tenderness,
And all her presence gave such grace,
Dark shadowed in her cloud of hair,
That she seemed more than mortal fair.
XX.
He saw. He could not speak. No more
With lifted glass he sought the sea;
No more he watched the wild new shore.
Now foes might come, now friends might flee;
He could not speak, he would not stir,—
He saw but her, he feared but her.
The black ship ground against the shore,
She ground against the bank as one
With long and weary journeys done,
That would not rise to journey more.
Yet still this Jason silent stood
And gazed against that sun-lit wood,
As one whose soul is anywhere.
All seemed so fair, so wondrous fair!
At last aroused, he stepped to land
Like some Columbus. They laid hand
On lands and fruits, and rested there.