With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.
How far, since then the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!
Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Orcades,
Where sea gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?
Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while
We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest.
Notes
1. "The collection of poems under this title was published in 1880. The volume bore on the title-page these lines from Horcae (lib. I., Carmen XXX., Ad Apollinem):--
Precor, integrâ
Cum mente, nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec cithar acirc; carentem.
The dedication is to his life-long friend, George Washington Greene, who himself dedicated his Life of Nathanael Greene to Mr. Longfellow in words which give a glowing picture of the aspirations of the two in the days of their young manhood." (Editor, p. 234.)
2. Hesperides: mythical garden of trees of golden apples, located in the utmost west of the world.
8. Atlantis: mythical island-civilization lost under the ocean waters and thought to be west of Gibraltar.
10. Orcades: Orkney islands, north of Scotland.
13. Ultima Thule: "farthest Thule," a place in northwest Greenland.
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