228

THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

In sea-hunting his father bore him oft To distant waves, when galleys swiftly sped With high emprise, and splendors from the East. ’Twas then the boy heard marvels of strange lands, Saw stranger peoples and their curious wealth,

Heard Wisdom speak from Persia and the Ind Of Eastern lore, and sages not a few.

Yet solitude, and isolation strange

Had borne the lad, first, love of truth, the same

That maketh man as gods, the love of sea,

Whose stormy waves his first playfellows were;

Deep love of nature, through whose veil he gazed On God’s eternal truth and secret laws.

The father had quick wrath, so earnest he Lest youth should fail; he offener thrust the boy Unto the sea, and strange and cruel men,

To lonesome lands, and thence to Venice proud.

F'or thus he thought to harden this brave youth, Whose nobler soul and larger mind surpass’d By hundred years his puny world and age.

Visions for him had thrown a golden scale Unto his gaze, wherein he saw his world Weigh’d strong in light, and error sink in cloud.

Musing, he said: this world is but the deep,

And where, as in a cradle, truth, and love—

Man’s guardian spirits—rock this little life,

Till muffled to sleep. Why should I pause,

When faith and soul and nature call me hence,

To turn that page which men have never seen,

What is my body? What is every life But one fleet airship? He alone then takes Some guidance—plants my pole star—stilleth waves, And shows me once by His own light on them That nether world—all worlds my vision sees;

Deep calleth unto deep, and I shall on!

Meanwhile Columbus’ brain held surer thought And visions vast, that ray’d the beamy wings Of tireless faith with their undying light.

To Isabella’s larger heart and mind He would unfold his scheme: I’ll pierce this realm With my sword of truth, ay, England, and France, And Italy, unto the utmost sphere!

The unknown deep hath won my youth, and well;

It bore my love, Felipa, in soft folds,

To mystic death, and now, God will, it shall Give me that virgin world men disbelieve.

Yon deep allures me on, and she, our queen,

May light a path o’er undivided waves To newer Eden lands, henceforth her own.

Such image looms before my waking soul, Columbus, meek and brave, his sovereigns sought; The king was kingliness, and Isabella