Homecoming

When I came home from wanderings     In a tall chattering ship,     I thought a hundred happy things,     Of people, places, and such things     As I came sailing home.     The tall ship moved how slowly on     With me and hundreds more,     That thought not then of wanderings,     But of unwhispered, longed-for things,     Familiar things of home.     For not in miles seemed other lands     Far off, but in long years     As we came near to England then;     Even the tall ship heard secret things     As she moved trembling home.     It was at dawn. The chattering ship     Was strangely hushed; faint mist     Crept everywhere, and we crept on,     And every eye was creeping on     The mist, as we moved home....     Until we saw, far, very far,     Or dreamed we saw, her cliffs,     And thought of sweet, intolerable things,     Of England--dark, unwhispered things,     Such things, as we crept home.