A VOYAGE1909Breathing the stale and stuffy airOf office or consulting room,Our thoughts will wander back to whereWe heard the low Atlantic boom,And, creaming underneath our screw,We watched the swirling waters break,Silver filagrees on blueSpreading fan-wise in our wake.Cribbed within the city's fold,Fettered to our daily round,We'll conjure up the haze of goldWhich ringed the wide horizon round.And still we'll break the sordid dayBy fleeting visions far and fair,The silver shield of Vigo Bay,The long brown cliff of Finisterre.Where once the Roman galley sped,Or Moorish corsair spread his sail,By wooded shore, or sunlit head,By barren hill or sea-washed valeWe took our way. But we can swear,That many countries we have scanned,But never one that could compareWith our own island mother-land.The dream is o'er. No more we viewThe shores of Christian or of Turk,But turning to our tasks anew,We bend us to our wonted work.But there will come to you and meSome glimpse of spacious days goneby,The wide, wide stretches of the sea,The mighty curtain of the sky,
Breathing the stale and stuffy airOf office or consulting room,Our thoughts will wander back to whereWe heard the low Atlantic boom,And, creaming underneath our screw,We watched the swirling waters break,Silver filagrees on blueSpreading fan-wise in our wake.Cribbed within the city's fold,Fettered to our daily round,We'll conjure up the haze of goldWhich ringed the wide horizon round.And still we'll break the sordid dayBy fleeting visions far and fair,The silver shield of Vigo Bay,The long brown cliff of Finisterre.Where once the Roman galley sped,Or Moorish corsair spread his sail,By wooded shore, or sunlit head,By barren hill or sea-washed valeWe took our way. But we can swear,That many countries we have scanned,But never one that could compareWith our own island mother-land.The dream is o'er. No more we viewThe shores of Christian or of Turk,But turning to our tasks anew,We bend us to our wonted work.But there will come to you and meSome glimpse of spacious days goneby,The wide, wide stretches of the sea,The mighty curtain of the sky,