Poem by Richard Monckton Milnes

Columbus and the Mayflower

O LITTLE fleet! that on thy quest divine
Sailedst from Palos one bright autumn morn,
Say, has old Ocean's bosom ever borne
A freight of faith and hope to match with thine?

Say, too, has Heaven's high favor given again
Such consummation of desire as shone
About Columbus when he rested on
The new-found world and married it to Spain?

Answer, -- thou refuge of the freeman's need, --
Thou for whose destinies no kings looked out,
Nor sages to resolve some mighty doubt, --
Thou simple Mayflower of the sald-sea mead!

When thou wert wafted to that distant shore,
Gay flowers, bright birds, rich odors met thee not;
Stern Nature hailed thee to a sterner lot, --
God gave free earth and air, and gave no more.

Thus to men cast in that heroic mould
Came empire such as Spaniard never knew,
Such empire as beseems the just and true;
And at last, almost unsought, came gold.

But He who rules both calm and stormy days,
Can guard that people's heart, that nation's health,
Safe on the perilous heights of power and wealth,
As in the straitness of the ancient ways.

1. Corfu
2. A Dream in a Gondola
3. Cannae
4. The Subterranean River, At Cong
5. Meditative Fragments, on Venice

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