A Song Of The Future

By Sidney Lanier

Sail fast, sail fast,

   Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;

   Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past,

   Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams;

       Sail fast, sail fast.

Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea

With news about the Future scent the sea:

My brain is beating like the heart of Haste:

I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;

       Go, trembling song,

   And stay not long; oh, stay not long:

   Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove,

   But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.