“Let Us Turn Hitherward Our Bark.”
R. C. Trench.
“Let us turn hitherward our bark,” they cried,
“And, ’mid the blisses of this happy isle,
Past toil forgetting and to come, abide
In joyfulness awhile.
And then, refreshed, our tasks resume again,
If other tasks we yet are bound unto,
Combing the hoary tresses of the main
With sharp swift keel anew.”
O heroes, that had once a nobler aim,
O heroes, sprung from many a godlike line,
What will ye do, unmindful of your fame,
And of your race divine?
But they, by these prevailing voices now
Lured, evermore draw nearer to the land,
Nor saw the wrecks of many a goodly prow,
That strewed that fatal strand;
Or seeing, feared not—warning taking none
From the plain doom of all who went before,
Whose bones lay bleaching in the wind and sun,
And whitened all the shore.