206 MYSTERIES:
Our prows with seaweed, such as wise men seek
For cleansing of their altars with slow blood
Wrenched from the long dark leaves, with fingers weak
With age and toil; to stem the restless flood
That boils between the islands; to attain
The ultimate ice, where some calm hero stood
And looked one last time for a sail in vain,
And looking upward not in vain, lay down
And died, to pass where cold and any pain
Are not. So still the night is, like the crown
Most white of the high God that glittereth,
The stars surround the moon, and Nereids drown
Their rippled tresses in her golden breath.
Let us keep watch, my true love, caught at last
Between my hands, and not remember death.
Only bethink us of the daylight past,
The long chase oversea, the storm, the speed
Whereby we ran before the leaping blast,
And left the swift pursuers at our need
With one wrecked dragon and one shattered ; yea!
And on their swiftest many warriors bleed,
Having beheld, above the gray seaway
Between them and the sun, my sword arise,
Like the first dagger flashing for the day,