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FLAWLESS HIS HEART

Flawless his heart and tempered to the core

Who, beckoned by the forward-leaning wave,

First left behind him the firm-footed shore,

And, urged by every nerve of sail and oar,

Steered for the Unknown which gods to mortals gave,

Of thought and action the mysterious door,

Bugbear of fools, a summons to the brave:

Strength found he in the unsympathizing sun,

And strange stars from beneath the horizon won,

And the dumb ocean pitilessly grave:

High-hearted surely he;

But bolder they who first off-cast

Their moorings from the habitable Past

And ventured chartless on the sea

Of storm-engendering Liberty:

For all earth's width of waters is a span,

And their convulsed existence mere repose,

Matched with the unstable heart of man,

Shoreless in wants, mist-girt in all it knows,

Open to every wind of sect or clan,

And sudden-passionate in ebbs and flows.

James Russell Lowell.