Classic Poem

Think me not weak,
Though tumults rising in my breaking heart
Stagger my speech. Thanks to your majesties
That ye devote one sovereign hour to him
Who thought in continents for Spain and you,
And broke a thousand steadfast barriers down
To push your standard even to the shores
Of Darien. Hear ye him patiently,
Judge ye his cause, and say in Justice' name
That he deserves his chains, is weak and base
And criminal and hath abused your trust;
Then will he don once more his iron gyves,
Go back to prison dark, count it his home,
And trust the estimate of life's avail
To time and generations yet to be.

I am as one that, mad with many wrongs,
Would proudly silent be, but that I know
Your noble will in face of such dire ills
Bids fortune robe herself in juster guise;
I therefore freely speak in mine own cause:—
Even from a boy, I lived with seas and stars;
I saw the sun above the Pyrenees
Go westward to the waters and afar,
O'er ocean, isle and continent, sweep on
Around the orbèd world. I broke the bars
Of ignorance and superstition's night,
And saw the future argosies of earth,
Led by your caravels, abridge the deep,
Unite the continents, annul the seas
And subjugate the world.

I told my dream
To Europe. When the priests of science heard,
They said: “Here is a knave with mind askew,
With crazy plan to find the farther east
By westward sailing; turning from his port
To come where he would go.” Thus sped the years.
But when your vision, partnered with my zeal,
With compass, quadrant, astrolabe and ships,
I drove the old fear-goblins from the sea,
Flung wide the portals of the western main
And gave to men a new-found hemisphere,

Six times I crossed the deep and made the sea
A highway for the world. I stirred the soul
Of all true mariners. Already hath
Da Gama passed beyond the Cape of Storms
To India. Cabot of England, too,
Hath found north lands interminably vast,
And though I brought no wealth of gold to Spain,
Her empire in this new-found western clime
Shall give to her such dignity of power
That all the coming years shall hear and know
Your august names the better that ye gave
Your royal furtherance to one despised,
Of foreign birth.

And now detractors say
I smutched my fame, was cruel, tyrannous,
Incompetent. To such grave charge I turn:
Not claiming to be superhuman-wise,
But, given a convict crew from wholesome law
A thousand leagues removed, and not inured
To hardness in strange lands, I ask you now
Was this my task an easy enterprise?
Was that a selfish act that saved the lives
Of those who gave the world a continent?
Doth prudence rule with softness in such case?
The ship's log shows, in inky phrase, the facts
Laid bare which vindicate my cause.

All these,
Ye both have seen and scanned. And yet, mark ye,
I ask no pity on this snowy head
So early whitened by unfriendly storms.
All such infirmities with life will pass;
But lies are virulent as leprosy.
Let wrongs by falsehood done, go unredressed,
They leave for aye their drag of infamy,
Insult the memory of noble hearts
And plow the face of time with tears.

Some day
The truth shall give its freedom to my fame.
Then those who knew them falsehoods from the first,
With those who bred these calumnies, shall sink
To everlasting obloquy—their due.

I thank your majesties. 'Tis sweet to know
Your trust unbroken. Pardon me the hope
That when my promised freedom is restored,
With power to do what human strength can do,
My toils shall bring a nobler fame to those
Who furthered my emprise than had I won
Cipango's golden store or found a path
To India.