text:  How Fancy's boldest glances fail Contemplating each hurrying mood Of thought that to that aspect pale Sent up the heart's o'erboiling flood Through that vast vigil while his eyes Watch'd till the slow reluctant skies Should kindle and the vision dread Of all his livelong years be read! In youth his faith-led spirit doom'd Still to be baffled and betray'd His manhood's vigorous noon consumed Ere Power bestow'd its niggard aid; That morn of summer dawning grey {B} When from Huelva's humble bay He full of hope before the gale Turn'd on the hopeless World his sail And steer'd for seas untrack'd unknown And westward still sail'd on--sail'd on-- Sail'd on till Ocean seem'd to be All shoreless as Eternity Till from its long-loved Star estranged At last the constant Needle changed {C} And fierce amid his murmuring crew Prone terror into treason grew; While on his tortured spirit rose More dire than portents toils or foes The awaiting World's loud jeers and scorn Yell'd o'er his profitless Return; No--none through that dark watch may trace The feelings wild beneath whose swell As heaves the bark the billows' race His Being rose and fell! Yet over doubt and pride and pain O'er all that flash'd through breast and brain As with those grand immortal eyes He stood--his heart on fire to know When morning next illumed the skies What wonders in its light should glow-- O'er all one thought must in that hour Have sway'd supreme--Power conscious Power-- The lofty sense that Truths conceived And born of his own starry mind And foster'd into might achieved A new Creation for mankind! And when from off that ocean calm The Tropic's dusky curtain clear'd All those green shores and banks of balm And rosy-tinted hills appear'd Silent and bright as Eden ere Earth's breezes shook one blossom there-- Against that hour's proud tumult weigh'd LOVE FAME AMBITION how ye fade! VI