Land ! Land !
The loud-resounding sail relaxes,
The wind is resting from its wrath,
A gentle sun at last is gilding
The circle of their stormy path.
Behold a starry Eldorado
Up from a deadly dawn will start ;
The sabre of a senseless vision
Has stabbed your courage to the heart.
Only one choice is left Columbus :
A pistol to his mouth he pressed,
Thus, with a compass-point unchanging,
To check his voyage to the west.
Then on the black unmeaning water
The ship would rock, unsteered, unmanned...
But suddenly, and life-restoring,
There came a cry : The land ! The land !
Thus in my own life, as I travel,
Though lost the compass that I use,
I still say : Do not turn back homewards !
Do not give up the deathless cruise !
Bend to the oar and break the water,
See, where the billows seem to end,
A crystal peak on the horizon,
The land to which our ship must tend !
Through bloody reefs you then must struggle
Until your keel shall strike the sand,
And in the splendour of new glory
You set your foot upon the land.
vertaald door C.H. Andrusyshen and Watson Kirkconnell
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