The opiate isles upon time's sea <br />In the dream-dark <br />Rise with their harbours silently <br />Before each day-abandoned bark, <br />And the worn mariner anchors there <br />Till thought, new-waked in the dewy air, <br />Sings like a lark. <br />The silent isles with their dream-shores <br />On the waves float, <br />Whereto the faint-eyed mariner oars <br />Within the dusk his eerie boat; <br />All care put by, like one who knows <br />No tide there turns and no wind blows, <br />Near or remote! <br />From day to day upon time's main <br />We sail on so, <br />Sure every night some port to gain <br />In the dream-dark where no winds blow; <br />Until we too this sea have cross'd <br />E'en like the galleons that were tost <br />Here long ago. <br />Some seem each day to sail so far, <br />They reach that shore <br />So very soon where all things are <br />As they will be for evermore; <br />Some for so many a night and day <br />Have to drift on their lonely way <br />Ere all is o'er. <br />But all sails touch the land at last: <br />The slowest come <br />As in a mist out of the past — <br />The last dream-isle fades on the foam, <br />The last stars rise, the last stars set, <br />And there is but the last day yet <br />'Tween them and home.<br /><br />Robert Crawford<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-isles-of-sleep/
