C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
S
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,
And the east wind was his breath.
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o’er the main.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land wind failed.
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
The Book was in his hand;
“Do not fear! heaven is as near,”
He said, “by water as by land!”
Without a signal’s sound,
Out of the sea mysteriously
The fleet of Death rose all around.
Were hanging in the shrouds:
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain, o’er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.