Silent of man in the new dawn aquiver,
Anchored his lone ship lay.
Not as he sailed where the hills draw together
Holding his course up the broad-breasted river,
Only the dream of Beyond in his brain,
Only the seas of Cathay to attain,
On till the narrowed stream told him ’twas vain.
Then back as one baffled, undone,
Unknowing he’d won by the gate of the sea
The throne of an empire of peoples to be.