Classic Poem

Yet had his sun not risen; from his lips
Fell in swift fervid accents his desire,
And Talavera's eyes of smouldering fire
Shone with a myriad doubts, a dark eclipse
Of faith hung round him, and the longed for ships
Ploughed but the ocean of his star-lit dreams;
Time had not tried his soul enough with whips
And scorns, for so the rigid Master deems
He makes his servants fit
For the hard toils which knit
The perfect garment, firm and without seams,
The world shall wear at last; his hurt brain teems
With indignation and he turns away
Undaunted, and he girds him for the fray
Once more; but first he hears the words of his good friend,
Marchena, strong with trust in the far-shining end.

His wanderings reached at last the lonely door
Of calm La Rabida; there the silence came
Grateful upon his grief's consuming flame;
The simple cloisters gave him peace once more,
And the live ocean rolled up to the shore
In ceaseless voice of promise; through the pines
The sun looked down benignant, and the roar
Of the far world of rivalries declines
Into an inward murmur
With each day growing firmer,
Whose sense is conquest at the last; as shines
A lamp across a rocky path's confines,
Making the outlet clear, Juan Perez' faith
Who heard him and conceived his words no wraith
Of fevered fancy but the very truth, was light
To bring the Queen to know his purposes aright.

O noble priest and friend! you reached the court
And turned the Queen from conquest's mid career
To hearken; other triumphs glittered clear
Before her, and again from Huelva's port
The seeker came; he saw Granada's fort
Open its gates reluctant, and the King,
El Zogoibi, bewail his bitter sort
And loss which made the rich Te Deums ring
When on La Vela's tower
The cross bloomed like a flower
Of heaven's own growing; but the sudden spring,
Loud with birds silent long that strove to sing,
After the winter's weary voiceless reign,
Was overcast with storms of cold disdain;
Haughtily forth he fared and reached Granada's gates
When the clouds lifted and the persecuting fates

Relented from their fury; for the Queen
Listened unto the urgings manifold
Of Santangel, and counsel, wise and bold,
Of the far-seeing Marchioness, whose keen
Divinings pierced the misty ocean's screen
And felt the deed must surely come to pass;
So they recalled him, and his life's changed scene
Grew bright with blooms and smile of thickening grass;
O royal woman then
Your hand received again
The keys of a great realm; in the clear glass
Of actions yet to be whose fires amass
Infinite stores of impulse toward the good,
Your image permanent lies; forth from the wood
Of beasts malicious and the unrelenting dread
You showed the way, but sought not from the gloom to tread.

The wind was fair, the ships lay in the bay,
And the blue sky looked down upon the earth;
Prophetic time laughed toward the nearing birth
Of the strong child with whom should come a day
That dulled all earlier hours. Forth on the way
With holy blessings said, and bellied sails,
And mounting joy that knows not let nor stay!
Lo! the undaunted purpose never fails!
O patient master, seer,
For whom the far is near.
The vision true, and the mere present pales
Its lustre, what mild seas and blossomed vales
Awaited you? haply a paradise
But not the one which drew your swerveless eyes;
Could you have known what lands were there beyond the main,
You surelier would have turned to gladsomeness from pain.