Explore "The Venturers" by Frederic Manning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Yea! even such as creep / With eyes bent earthward, in the little space / Between the dawn and waning of the day, / Between a sleep and sleep: / Even these, without a fixed abiding-place, / Travel, though tardily, upon the way / Labouring; while your lighter, swifter sail / Soars, rising over sudden hills of foam, / Exultant, through the storm; and, eager, flies / Like a fleet swallow up to meet the gale, / That drives with anger, through the heaven's dome, / Clouds, like great silver galleons in a sea of skies.
For every man, and each, / Is like a venture putting forth to sea, / Voyaging into unknown ways to find / Kindlier lands; and urges on to reach / Kingdoms which there may be / Hidden the grey gloom of the sea behind: / Fabulous kingdoms piled with golden toil / And the slow garnering of mortal dreams: / Such as lured forth the splendid sails of Spain.
So, journeying, we, in hope of that great spoil, / Steer hardily through all conflicting streams / Of Ocean, and count all the exultant battling gain.