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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G.


              1With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
              2We sailed for the Hesperides,
              3The land where golden apples grow;
              4But that, ah! that was long ago.

              5How far, since then, the ocean streams
              6Have swept us from that land of dreams,
              7That land of fiction and of truth,
              8The lost Atlantis of our youth!

              9Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
            10The tempest-haunted Orcades,
            11Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
            12And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?

            13Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
            14Here in thy harbors for a while
            15We lower our sails; a while we rest
            16From the unending, endless quest.

Notes

1] "The collection of poems under this title was published in 1880. The volume bore on the title-page these lines from Horcae (lib. I., Carmen XXX., Ad Apollinem):--

Precor, integrâ
Cum mente, nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec citharâ carentem.
The dedication is to his life-long friend, George Washington Greene, who himself dedicated his Life of Nathanael Greene to Mr. Longfellow in words which give a glowing picture of the aspirations of the two in the days of their young manhood." (Editor, p. 234.)

2] Hesperides: mythical garden of trees of golden apples, located in the utmost west of the world.

8] Atlantis: mythical island-civilization lost under the ocean waters and thought to be west of Gibraltar.

10] Orcades: Orkney islands, north of Scotland.

13] Ultima Thule: "farthest Thule," a place in northwest Greenland.


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Bibliographical and Critical Notes, Riverside Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), III, 235-36. PS 2250 E90 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1880
Publication date note: In Ultima Thule
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 4:2002/4/6

Composition date: 1880
Rhyme: aabb


Other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow