Classic Poem

I know it is coming, my absent ship,
Out somewhere over the seas unknown,
Though it wander afar where the oceans dip
Below the round world's edge sloping down.

I have never seen it except in dreams,
Or, like a mirage, in the misty air;
And yet it is coming, and often it seems
To be rounding the point over there.

It is loaded down to the water's edge
With all that the heart of man desires, —
Rich robes and fine gold in many a wedge,
And jewels that flash with their hidden fires.

It is freighted with all I have ever sought:
With the hopes that eluded my eager hand;
The deeds I have dreamed, but never wrought,
The perfect poems my thought has planned.

And there on the deck, looking out o'er the main,
Are the forms of the lost ones who went away:
I wait on the cliffs till I see them again,
And count all the days of my weary delay.

And sometimes I fear they will never come back;
For, when the wind rises and all the waves roar,
I fancy them driven in pitiless wrack,
And torn on the rocks of some desolate shore.

But, when the storm lulls, I see it anew,
Each spar standing out against a clear sky,
Her prow pointing homeward, her compass still true,
And cleaving the waves as she tosses them by.

And so I wait on, day in and day out,
Till I look on my home-coming, beautiful barge,
Gold-rigged in the sun, with song and with shout,
Glide up with wide wings to the sandy marge.