Once as a boy I dreamed
Where wider waters gleamed
Of ships below
The slowly gathering western stars,
The last of sunset in their lofty spars
And great winds urging to a harbor shown
On charts of long ago
And solitary oceans then unknown.

The islands of their quest,
Deep in the mystic west,
I too would find
And wed the daughter of a king.
Almost I heard the distant cordage sing
And saw the silvern light of that far foam,
Born of a sea and wind
That called me outward from my boyhood home.

All that was long ago.
How, hazardless, I know—
Who knew not then
How far the tides of Time would lead-
That dream and mystery were mine indeed
And mine the loss or victories of Chance.
Seaward I gaze again
And know that boyhood was the true romance.