You Say, Columbus with his Argosies
You Say, Columbus with his Argosies
Original Text
The Poems of Trumbull Stickney, ed. George Cabot Lodge, William Vaughn Moody, and John Ellerton Lodge (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1905): 79 (the first poem in the "Sonnets" group). PS 3537 T525 1905 Robarts Library.
2Who rash and greedy took the screaming main
3And vanished out before the hurricane
4Into the sunset after merchandise,
5Then under western palms with simple eyes
6Trafficked and robbed and triumphed home again:
7You say this is the glory of the brain
8And human life no other use than this?
9I then do answering say to you: The line
10Of wizards and of saviours, keeping trust
11In that which made them pensive and divine,
12Passes before us like a cloud of dust.
13What were they? Actors, ill and mad with wine,
14And all their language babble and disgust.
Notes
1] argosies: fleet of ships. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1902
Publication Notes
Dramatic Verses (1902), p. 71
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme
Form