Book 3 — The Return.

Now at last I am at home— Wind abeam and flooding tide, And the offing white with foam, And an old friend by my side Glad the long, green waves to ride. Strange how we've been wandering Through the crowded towns for gain, You and I who loved the sting Of the salt spray and the rain And the gale across the main! What world honors could avail Loss of this—the slanted mast, And the roaring round the rail, And the sheeted spray we cast Round us as we seaward passed? As the sad land sinks apace, With it sinks each thought of care; Think not now of aging face; Question not the whitening hair: Youth still beckons everywhere. And the light we thought had fled From the sky-line glows there now; Bends the same blue overhead; And the waves we used to plow Part in beryl at the bow. Hours like this we two have known In the old days, when we sailed Seaward ere the night had flown, Or the morning star had paled Like the shy eyes love has veiled. Round our bow the ripples purled, As the swift tide outward streamed Through a hushed and ghostly world, Where our harbor reaches seemed Like a river that we dreamed. Then we saw the black hills sway In the waters' crinkled glass, And the village wan and gray, And the startled cattle pass Through the tangled meadow-grass. Through the glooming we have run Straight into the gates of day, Seen the crimson-edgèd sun Burn the sea's gray bound away— Leap to universal sway. Little cared we where we drove So the wind was strong and keen. Oh, what sun-crowned waves we clove! What cool shadows lurked between Those long combers pale and green! Graybeard pleasures are but toys; Sorrow shatters them at last: For this brief hour we are boys; Trim the sheet and face the blast; Sail into the happy past!