‘My towers at last!’— <br />What meant the word <br />from what acknowledged circuit sprung <br />and in the heart and on the tongue <br />at sight of few familiar birds <br />when seaward his last sail unfurled <br />to leeward from the wheel once more <br />bloomed the pale crags of haunted shore <br />that once-more-visited notch of world: <br />and straight he knew as known before <br />the Logos in Leviathan’s roar <br />he deepest sounding with his lead <br />who all had fathomed all had said. <br /> <br /> <br />Much-loving hero—towers indeed <br />were those that overhung your log <br />with entries of typhoon and fog <br />and thunderstone for Adam’s breed: <br />man’s warm Sargasso Sea of faith <br />dislimned in light by luck or fate <br />you for mankind set sail by hate <br />and weathered it, and with it death. <br />And now at world’s end coasting late <br />in dolphined calms beyond the gate <br />which Hercules flung down, you come <br />to the grim rocks that nod you home. <br />Depth below depth this love of man: <br />among unnumbered and unknown <br />to mark and make his cryptic own <br />one landfall of all time began: <br />of all life’s hurts to treasure one <br />and hug it to the wounded breast, <br />in this to dedicate the rest, <br />all injuries received or done. <br />Your towers again but towers now blest <br />your haven in a shoreless west <br />o mariner of the human soul <br />who in the landmark notched the Pole <br />and in the Item loved the Whole.<br /><br />Conrad Potter Aiken<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/herman-melville/
