The Ship in the Desert

THEY stood upon the mountain brow,
The bearded trappers, halting stood
Irresolute, in nettled ire;
A group from out the cooling wood
They gazed right eagerly below.
The flushed sun settled to the west
Like some far hemisphere of fire;
The sands flashed back like fields of snow.
And yet again they gazed. And now,
Far off and faint, they saw or guessed
They saw, beyond the sands, a line —
A dim and distant lifting beach
That daring men might dare and reach:
Dim shapes of toppled peaks with pine,
And watered foot-hills dark like wine.

Their leader turned and shook his head.
“ And shall we turn aside,” he said,
“ Or dare this hell? ” The men stood still
As leaning on his sterner will;
And then he stopped and turned again,
And held his broad hand to his brow.
The far, white levels of the plains
Flashed back like billows. Even now
He saw rise up remote, ’mid sea,
’Mid space, ’mid wastes, ’mid nothingness,
A ship becalmed as in distress.
The dim sign passed as suddenly,
And then his eager eyes grew dazed —
He brought his two hands to his face.
Again he raised his head, and gazed
With flashing eyes and visage fierce
Far out, and resolute to pierce
The far, far, faint receding reach
Of space and touch its farther beach.
He saw but space, unbounded space;
Eternal space and nothingness.

They rested on the desert’s rim
Of sand. They saw the sun go down
Like some round, sinking isle aflame.
Behind them wheeled white peaks of snow
As they proceeded. Gray, and dim,
And ghostly shapes, bat-winged and brown,
And awful objects went and came
Before them now. They pierced at last
The desert’s middle depths, and lo!
There loomed from out the desert vast
A lonely ship, well built and trim,
And perfect all in hull and mast.

No storm had stained it any whit,
No seasons set their teeth in it.
The rains, the elements, and all
The moving things that bring decay
By fair green lands or fairer seas,
Had touched not here for centuries.
Lo! date has lost all reckoning
In this lost land, and no new thing,
Or old, can anywise befall,
For time goes by the other way.

The ages have not any course
Across this untracked waste. The sky
Wears here one blue, unchanging hue,
The heavens one unbending mood.
The far, still stars, they filter through
The heavens, falling bright and bold
Against the sands as beams of gold.
The wide, white moon forgets her force;
The very sun rides round and high,
As if to shun this solitude.

What dreams of gold or conquest drew
The oak-built sea-king to these seas,
Ere Earth, old Earth unsatisfied,
Rose up and shook man in disgust,
And smote his cities down, and dried
These measured, town-set seas to dust?
Who trod these decks? What captain knew
The straits that led to lands like these?

Blew south sea-breeze or north sea-breeze?
What spiced winds whistled through this sail?
What banners streamed above these seas?
And what strange seaman answered back
To other sea-king’s beck and hail,
That blew across his foamy track?

Sought Jason here the golden fleece?
Came Trojan ship or ships of Greece?
Came decks dark-manned from sultry Ind,
Wooed here by spacious wooing wind;
Some like a grand, sweet woman, when
A great love moves her soul to men?

Came here strong ships of Solomon
In quest of Ophir by Cathay? . . .
Sit down and dream of seas withdrawn,
And every sea-breath drawn away. . . .
Sit down, sit down! What is the good
That we go on still fashioning
Great iron ships or walls of wood;
High masts of oak, or anything?

Lo! all things moving must go by.
The sea lies dead. Behold, this land
Sits desolate in dust beside
His snow-white, seamless shroud of sand;
The very clouds have wept and died,
And only God is in the sky.