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Title: Atalanta
Author: Rennell Rodd [
More Titles by Rodd]
Wait not along the shore, they will not come;
The suns go down beyond the windy seas,
Those weary sails shall never wing them home
O'er this white foam;
No voice from these
On any landward wind that dies among the trees.
Gone south, it may be, rudderless, astray,
Gone where the winds and ocean currents bore,
Out of all tracks along the sea's highway
This many a day,
To some far shore
Where never wild seas break, or any fierce winds roar.
For there are lands ye never recked of yet
Between the blue of stormless sea and sky,
Beyond where any suns of yours have set,
Or these waves fret;
And loud winds die
In cloudless summertide, where those far islands lie.
They will not come! for on the coral shore
The good ship lies, by little waves caressed,
All stormy ways and wanderings are o'er,
No more, no more!
But long sweet rest,
In cool green meadow-lands, that lie along the West.
Or if beneath far fathom depths of waves
She lies heeled over by the slow tide's sweep,
Deep down where never any swift sea raves,
Through ocean caves,
A dreaming deep
Of softly gliding forms, a glimmering world of sleep.
Then have they passed beyond the outer gate
Through death to knowledge of all things, and so
From out the silence of their unknown fate
They bid us wait,
Who only know
That twixt their loves and ours the great seas ebb and flow.
[The end]
Rennell Rodd's poem: Atalanta
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