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Title: Leif Ericson
Author: Max Eastman [
More Titles by Eastman]
Through the murk of the ocean of history northward and far,
I descry thee, O Sailor! Thy deed like the dive of a star
Doth startle the ages of darkness through which it is hurled,
Doth flash, and flare out, and is gone from the eyes of the world!
What watchers beheld thee, and heralding followed thy lead,
Or bugled the nations into the track of thy deed?
What continent soundeth thy name, what people thy praise?
Who sendeth the signal of gratitude back to the days
When thou in thy boat didst put forth from the world, and defy
Infinity, ignorance, tempest, and ocean, and sky?
No, history brags not of God, nor doth history brag
Of thee, sailor, who carried thy sail and thy sea-colored flag
Clear over His seas, drove into His mystery old
The prow of thy sixty-foot skerry, whose quivering hold
Could dip but a cupful out of His watery wrath,
That stormed thee, and snatched at thy bowsprit, and licked up thy path!
When mythical rumor sky-carried ran over the earth,
With the whisper of lands that were dreamed of beyond the red birth
Of the west-wind, the blood of thy body took running fire
To launch and be swift o'er the sea as a man's desire!
O rare is the northern morning that shineth for thee!
A million silvering crests on the cold blue sea--
And the wind drives in from the jubilant sea to the land,
And, catching thy laughter, it tosses the cloak in thy hand,
As taunting thee forth to thy sails in the frosty air,
Where thousands surround thee with awe and a wondering prayer.
And they that stand with thee--tumultuous-hearted they stand!
They bend at thy word--I hear the boat sing on the sand--
And they slip to their oars as the boat leaps aloft on a wave,
With thee at the windy helm, joyful and joyfully brave!
* * * * *
The depth of the billows is awful, the depth of the sky
Is silent as God. Silent the dark on high.
Naught sings to thy heart save thy heart and the wind, the wild giant
Of ocean, agrin in the darkness, who rattles defiant
A laugh through thy rigging, and howls from the clouds at thee,
And moans in a mimic of pain and a murmurous glee.
Still stern I behold thee, thy stature dim through the dark,
Unmoved, unreleasing the helm of thy storm-driven bark.
"O God of our fathers, give signs to our sea-worn eyes!
Give sight to Thy sailors! Give but the sun to arise
In the morn on an island pale in the haze of the west!
O beam of the star in the north, is thy only behest
To gesture me onward eternally unto no shore
Of these high and wild waters, famed for their hunger of yore?
Then give to thy sailor for life the courage of death,
To encounter the taunt of this wind with a rougher breath
Of gigantic contempt in the soul for where and when,
So it be onward impetuous, living, onward again!
He saileth safe who carrieth death on board,
He flieth a laughing sail in the wrath of the Lord!"
So sang thy heart to thy heart, and so to the swinging sea
In a lull of the wind, the song of a spirit free!
Serene adventurer, lover of distance divine,
Pursuing thy love forever though never thine,
O sun-tanned king with thy blue eyes over the sea,
Who dares to sing, and live, the praise of thee?
Not they that safe in a haven of certainty, steer
From mooring to mooring with faith and with fear,
And pray for a map of the universe, pointer, and plan,
When all the blue waves of the ocean the courage of man
Challenge to venture, not they are the praisers of thee!
Nor they who sail for the cargo, and dream that the sea,
In its wanton wild infinite wonder of motion and sound,
Is bound by a purpose, as their little breathing is bound.
The profit of thy great sailing to thee was small,
And unto the world it was nothing--a man, that was all,
And his deed like a star, to flame in the dull old sky!
Of the story of apathy, age after decorous age going by!
Grapes were thy import, winey and luscious to eat,
Grapes, and a story--"The dew in the west was sweet!"
Wine of the distance ever the reddest seems,
And sweet is the world to the dreamer and doer of dreams!
Weigh them, O pale-headed merchant--little ye know!
Compute, O desk-dwellers, ye will not measure him so,
For ye know only knowledge, ye know not the drive of the will
That brought it with passion to birth--it driveth still
Through the hearts of the kindred of earth, the forward fleeing,
The kin of the stormy soul at the helm of all-being!
Sailors, unreefed, and high-masted, and wet, and free,
Who sail in the love of the billows, whose port is the sea--
They sing thee, O Leif the Lucky, they sing thee sublime,
And launch with thee, glad as with God, on the ocean of time!
* * * * *
Leif Ericson, the Norse adventurer, sailed to America 500 years before Columbus.
[The end]
Max Eastman's poem: Leif Ericson
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