Hesperides

Beyond the blue rim of the world, Washed round with languid-lapsing seas, Where the Wind’s wings were ever furled The Ancients dreamed Hesperides. Ship after ship each age sent forth To find the Islands of the Blest; The loosed winds drove them south and north, But west they weathered, ever west. Sky after sky they dropped behind, Those mighty-handed, bearded men, Till, seeking what they could not find, They rounded upward, home again. A desultory waif of time Flying adventure from my mast, ’Twas thus I voyaged every clime To come back to myself at last!