The Master Of The Isles

There is rumor in Dark Harbor,     And the folk are all astir;     For a stranger in the offing     Draws them down to gaze at her,     In the gray of early morning,     Black against the orange streak,     Making in below the ledges,     With no colors at her peak.     Something makes their hearts uneasy     As they watch the long black hull,     For she brings the storm behind her     While before her there is lull.     With no pilot and unspoken,     Where the dancing breakers are,     Presently she veers and races     In across the roaring bar,--     Rounds and luffs and comes to anchor,     While the wharf begins to throng.     Silence falls upon the women.     And misgiving stirs the strong.     Then with some obscure foreboding,     As a gray-haired watcher smiles,     They perceive the fearless captain     Is the Master of the Isles.     They recall the bleak December     Many streaming years ago,     When the stranger had been sighted     Driving shoreward with the snow;     When the Master came among them     With his calm and courtly pride,     And had sailed away at sundown     With pale Dora for his bride;     How again he came one summer     When the herring schools were late,     And had cleared before the morning     With old Alec's son for mate.     There was glamour with the Master;     He had tales of far-off seas;     But his habit and demeanor     Were of other lands than these.     He had never made the Harbor     But there sailed away with him     Wife or child or friend or lover,     Leaving eyes to strain and swim,--     Strain and wait for their returning;     Yet they never had come back;     For the pale wake of the Master     Is a wandering, fading track.     Just beyond our utmost fathom     Is the anchorage we crave,     But the Master knows the soundings     By the reach of every wave.     Just beyond the last horizon,     Vague upon the weather-gleam,     Loom the Faroff Isles forever,     The tradition of a dream.     There a white and brooding summer     Haunts upon the gray sea-plain,     Where the gray sea-winds are quiet     At the sources of the rain.     There where all world-weary dreamers     Get them forth to their release,     Lie the colonies of the kindred,     In the provinces of peace.     Thither in the stormy sunset     Will the Master sail to-night;     And the village will be silent     When he drops below the light.     Not a soul on all the hillside     But will watch her when she clears,     Dreaming of the Port o' Strangers     In the roadstead of the years.     "Port o' Strangers, Port o' Strangers!"     "Where away?" "On the weather bow."     "Drive her down the closing distance!"...     That's to-morrow, but not now.     What imperial adventure     Some wide morning it will be,     Sweeping in to Lonely Haven     From the chartless round of sea!     How imposing a departure,     While this little harbor smiles,     Steering for the outer sea-rim     With the Master of the Isles!