It might have been men’s lust for gold,—
For all men knew that lawless crew
Left hoards of gold in that ship’s hold,
That drew ships hence, and silent drew
Strange Jasons to that steep wood shore,
As if to seek that hidden store,—
I never either cared or knew.
I say it might have been this gold
That ever drew and strangely drew
Strong men of land, strange men of sea,
To seek this shore of mystery
With all its wondrous tales untold:
The gold or her, which of the two?
It matters not; I never knew.
But this I know, that as for me,
Between that face and the hard fate
That kept me ever from my own,
As some wronged monarch from his throne,
God’s heaped-up gold of land or sea
Had never weighed one feather’s weight.
Her home was on the wooded height,—
A woody home, a priest at prayer,
A perfume in the fervid air,
And angels watching her at night.
I can but think upon the skies
That bound that other Paradise.
VI.
Below a star-built arch, as grand
As ever bended heaven spanned;
Tall trees like mighty columns grew—
They loomed as if to pierce the blue,
They reached as reaching heaven through.
The shadowed stream rolled far below,
Where men moved noiseless to and fro
As in some vast cathedral, when
The calm of prayer comes to men,
With benedictions, bending low.
Lo! wooded sea-banks, wild and steep!
A trackless wood; a snowy cone
That lifted from this wood alone!
This wild wide river, dark and deep!
A ship against the shore asleep!
VII.
An Indian woman crept, a crone,
Hard by about the land alone,
The relic of her perished race.
She wore rich, rudely-fashioned bands
Of gold above her bony hands:
She hissed hot curses on the place!