I

The illimitable leaping of the sea, The mouthing of his madness to the moon, The seething of his endless sorcery, His prophecy no power can attune,

Swept over me as, on the sounding prow Of a great ship that steered into the stars, I stood and felt the awe upon my brow Of death and destiny and all that mars.

The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung; The sailor in his eyrie on the mast Sang an “All's well,” that to the spirit clung

Like a lost voice from some aërial realm Where ships sail on forever to no shore, Where Time gives Immortality the helm, And fades like a far phantom from life's door.

“And is all well, O Thou Unweariable Launcher of worlds upon bewildered space,” Rose in me, “All? or did thy hand grow dull Building this world that bears a piteous race?

O was it launched too soon or launched too late? Or can it be a derelict that drifts Beyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate On which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?”

The sea grew softer as I questioned — calm With mystery that like an answer moved, And from infinity there fell a balm, The old peace that God is, tho all unproved.

The old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stun The soul, and knowledge drown within their deep, There is no world that wanders, no not one Of all the millions, that He does not keep.