They sailed. They sailed. Then spoke the mate:
“This mad sea shows his teeth to-night;
He curls his lips, he lies in wait
With lifted teeth as if to bite;
Brave Admiral, say but one good word,
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leaped like a leaping sword,
“Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! and then a speck,
“A light! A light! A light! A light!”
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”
—Joaquin Miller.
OPPORTUNITY
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner
Wavered, then staggered backwards, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought, “Had I a sword of keener steel—
That blue blade that the king’s son bears,—but this
Blunt thing—!” he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.
—Edward Rowland Sill.
TO-DAY
Thomas Carlyle
So here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of eternity
This new day is born,
Into eternity,
At night, will return.