I mind me once in boyhood when the mist Swirled round me, ash of pearl and amethyst, How, in an unknown, difficult, high place, I pushed the green boughs backward from my face, And with a fire along the blood, a cry, Rode out upon a headland in the sky. I know not in what world it was—Mirak Or Algol, or some further Zodiac! I looked down on a sea of fog below; Saw strange lands rise, strange waters furl and flow, Breaking on newly lifted reefs and shores— New Africas, new Indies, new Azores— Lands that allured me to illustrious deed, Past Roland’s fame, and all his knightly breed— Fringes of lands no foot had ever found, Where billows climbed and burst without a sound; While further still, on dim untraveled seas, Gleamed lost Atlantis, lost Hesperides.
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