Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Feb. 27, 1807 - Mar. 24, 1882

 

Ultima Thule

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To G.W.G.

With favouring winds, o'er sunlit seas, land of fiction, truth,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.

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

Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Hebrides,
Where seagulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore!

Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbours for awhile
We lower our sails, awhile we rest
From the unending endless quest.

Source:

Longfellow's Poetical Works
Copyright 1893
Henry Frowde, London