| |
| I HAVE a little kinsman | |
| Whose earthly summers are but three, | |
| And yet a voyager is he | |
| Greater than Drake or Frobisher, | |
| Than all their peers together! | 5 |
| He is a brave discoverer, | |
| And, far beyond the tether | |
| Of them who seek the frozen Pole, | |
| Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll. | |
| Ay, he has travelled whither | 10 |
| A winged pilot steered his bark | |
| Through the portals of the dark, | |
| Past hoary Mimir’s well and tree, | |
| Across the unknown sea. | |
| |
| Suddenly, in his fair young hour, | 15 |
| Came one who bore a flower, | |
| And laid it in his dimpled hand | |
| With this command: | |
| “Henceforth thou art a rover! | |
| Thou must make a voyage far, | 20 |
| Sail beneath the evening star, | |
| And a wondrous land discover.” | |
| —With his sweet smile innocent | |
| Our little kinsman went. | |
| |
| Since that time no word | 25 |
| From the absent has been heard. | |
| Who can tell | |
| How he fares, or answer well | |
| What the little one has found | |
| Since he left us, outward bound? | 30 |
| Would that he might return! | |
| Then should we learn | |
| From the pricking of his chart | |
| How the skyey roadways part. | |
| Hush! does not the baby this way bring, | 35 |
| To lay beside this severed curl, | |
| Some starry offering | |
| Of chrysolite or pearl? | |
| |
| Ah, no! not so! | |
| We may follow on his track, | 40 |
| But he comes not back. | |
| And yet I dare aver | |
| He is a brave discoverer | |
| Of climes his elders do not know. | |
| He has more learning than appears | 45 |
| On the scroll of twice three thousand years, | |
| More than in the groves is taught, | |
| Or from furthest Indies brought; | |
| He knows, perchance, how spirits fare,— | |
| What shapes the angels wear, | 50 |
| What is their guise and speech | |
| In those lands beyond our reach,— | |
| And his eyes behold | |
| Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers told. | |
| |
