Ferrying souls across from a drowning world,
and cattle, horses, they came, each hearing in his ear
his personal omen, to the new found land,
the country discovered by blunder, like beauty, and death.
And truly, there was in the mines more gold than earth;
angels like savage children brought them death, and gifts.
Exhausting the mines, soon they tired of the gold;
facing the death, they escaped the resurrection.
Yet it is men like those on whom the dying depend
to carry them safe, over the womanly sea,
until they sight to leeward, springing like fact,
the country they have been sailing backward to reach.
Sitting on this dusty bench, here by the inn,
I play a kind of dreaming Rip to your Hendrick;
I think of you playing games with your little friends,
and wait here, telling stories, till you come out.
Noah in your moonboat, Hendrick in your halfmoon,
sleeping under the mountain till the sea rise again.
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