Homeward Bound

After long labouring in the windy ways,

  On smooth and shining tides

  Swiftly the great ship glides,

    Her storms forgot, her weary watches past;

Northward she glides, and through the enchanted haze

    Faint on the verge her far hope dawns at last.

The phantom sky-line of a shadowy down,

  Whose pale white cliffs below

  Through sunny mist aglow,

    Like noon-day ghosts of summer moonshine gleam---

Soft as old sorrow, bright as old renown,

    There lies the home, of all our mortal dream.