Poncé De Léon
By a black wharf I stood lately,
When the night was at its noon;
Keen, malicious stars were shining,
And a wicked, white-faced moon.
And I saw a stately vessel,
Built in fashion quaint and old;
From her masthead, in the moonlight,
Hung a flag of faded gold.
Black with age her masts and spars were,
Black with age her ropes and rails;
Like a ghost through cere-cloths gazing
Shone the white moon through her sails.
Not a movement stirred the stillness,
Not a sound the silence broke,
Save alone the livid water
Lapping round her sides of oak.
Then to her unseen commander
Spake I, as to one I knew—
“Don Juan Poncé de Léon,
I have waited long for you.
“Take me with you, I implore you!
Take me with you on your quest
For the Fount of Youth Eternal,
For the Islands of the Blest.”
Then above the bulwarks ancient
I beheld a head arise;
And the moon with ghastly glimmer
Lit its sad and hollow eyes.
“Grieved am I, señor, and sorry,”
Very courteously it said,
“That I may not take you with me—
But I only take the Dead.
“These alone may dare the voyage,
These alone sail on the quest
For the Fount of Youth Eternal,
For the Islands of the Blest.”
poem by Victor James Daley
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