Where all the shores of promise be,
Where lie the islands of repose,
And where the rocks that he must flee.

Capricious winds, uncertain tides,
Drive the young sailor on and on,
Till all his charts and all his guides
Prove false, and vain conceit is gone,
And only docile love abides.

Where lay the shallows of the maid,
No plummet line the wife may sound;
Where round the sunny islands played
The pulses of the great profound,
Lies low the treacherous everglade.

And sailing, he becomes, perforce,
Discoverer of a lovely world;
And finds, whate'er may be his course,
Green lands within white seas impearled,
And streams of unsuspected source

Which feed with gold delicious fruits,
Kept by unguessed Hesperides,
Or cool the lips of gentle brutes
That breed and browse among the trees
Whose wind-tossed limbs and leaves are lutes,

The maiden free, the maiden wed,
Can never, never be the same.