The Discoverer

    i have a little kinsman Whose earthly summers are but three,     And yet a voyager is he     Greater than Drake or Frobisher,     Than all their peers together!     He is a brave discoverer,     And, far beyond the tether     Of them who seek the frozen Pole, Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.     Ay, he has travelled whither     A winged pilot steered his bark     Through the portals of the dark,     Past hoary Mimir’s well and tree,         Across the unknown sea.     Suddenly, in his fair young hour,     Came one who bore a flower,     And laid it in his dimpled hand         With this command:     “Henceforth thou art a rover!     Thou must make a voyage far,     Sail beneath the evening star,     And a wondrous land discover.”     —With his sweet smile innocent         Our little kinsman went.     Since that time no word     From the absent has been heard.         Who can tell     How he fares, or answer well     What the little one has found     Since he left us, outward bound?     Would that he might return!     Then should we learn     From the pricking of his chart     How the skyey roadways part. Hush! does not the baby this way bring,     To lay beside this severed curl,         Some starry offering     Of chrysolite or pearl?         Ah, no! not so!     We may follow on his track,         But he comes not back.         And yet I dare aver     He is a brave discoverer     Of climes his elders do not know.     He has more learning than appears     On the scroll of twice three thousand years,     More than in the groves is taught,     Or from furthest Indies brought;     He knows, perchance, how spirits fare,—     What shapes the angels wear,     What is their guise and speech     In those lands beyond our reach,—         And his eyes behold Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers told.