The gibbering and the whistling gods. But he, though thus with hand and head He ruled, commanded, charmed, and led, And thus in virtue and in might Towered to contemporary sight— Still in fraternal faith and love, Remained below to reach above, Gave and obeyed the apt command, Pilot and vassal of the land.
IV
My Tembinok’ from men like these Inherited his palaces, His right to rule, his powers of mind, His cocoa-islands sea-enshrined. Stern bearer of the sword and whip, A master passed in mastership, He learned, without the spur of need, To write, to cipher, and to read; From all that touch on his prone shore Augments his treasury of lore, Eager in age as erst in youth To catch an art, to learn a truth, To paint on the internal page A clearer picture of the age. His age, you say? But ah, not so! In his lone isle of long ago, A royal Lady of Shalott, Sea-sundered, he beholds it not; He only hears it far away. The stress of equatorial day He suffers; he records the while The vapid annals of the isle; Slaves bring him praise of his renown, Or cackle of the palm-tree town; The rarer ship and the rare boat He marks; and only hears remote, Where thrones and fortunes rise and reel, The thunder of the turning wheel.
V
For the unexpected tears he shed At my departing, may his lion head Not whiten, his revolving years No fresh occasion minister of tears; At book or cards, at work or sport, Him may the breeze across the palace court Forever fan; and swelling near Forever the loud song divert his ear.
Schooner Equator , at Sea.