Away

    I built a ship at sunset
    On the shore of a golden sea,
    When twilight was long in the coming
    And the seabirds were crying to me.

    I chose good wood for her timbers:
    I chose wood as white as goat's milk,
    And wood that gleamed like pale starlight,
    And black wood smelling of silk.

    Dragonskin were the sails I raised;
    A unicorn's head was at the prow.
    Carved mermaids danced along the sides,
    Beside carved runes of past and now.

    I bound the ship with songs and spells;
    I sang the spells at end of day,
    And climbed aboard my pale-dark ship.
    There came a wind to bear me away.

    Across the golden water, on,
    On down the road of sunlit gold,
    My faery wind blew, and I heard
    Long songs of wonder all untold.

    Silver dolphins leaped before me,
    Seabirds wheeled in fading light.
    Waves shone like diamonds under moon
    And hundred million stars of night.

    Like a gull on billow resting,
    Like seal cradled by the sea,
    I slept that night beneath the stars
    And the wind that came for me.

    Amaranth, rose from the east,
    Dawn came blooming like a flower.
    Came I slowly from my dreaming,
    To see beauty and wild power.

    Crystal, glass, and turquoise-gold,
    And shining clouds so deep a green.
    Hyacinth and anenome
    Painted the sky with sunrise sheen.

    Gulls came flying from the sun's world
    That slumbers deep behind golden hills
    To feed and bathe in the water
    Of so bright a gold it kills.

    Radiating a thousand colors,
    Hippocampi rose to gaze at me.
    Flaming and cool, their flicking tails
    Tossed bright sprays back into the sea.

    Sea-nymphs and sirens sang on stones,
    Whales sounded, lords untamed.
    Tangled manes of sea-horses blew
    Back in the faces of riders unnamed.

    Flying fish leaped on glassy wings.
    The shark held concourse undersea.
    Dolphins sang their keening songs,
    Mourning for sunken lands strange to me.

    And there were creatures than these stranger,
    But for them no names I possess.
    A moment, a glance, and then they faded.
    I passed on into the west.

    Across the open waves, away,
    Beyond the stretches no man knows,
    Into light and edge of darkness,
    I passed like fading summer rose.

    The light closed all around me,
    Shining walls that reflect afar
    The secrets gathered at sunset.
    I looked into the hearts of stars.

    And there were lands than these stranger,
    But for them nothing can I say.
    A moment, a glance, and then they faded.
    I passed on, and passed away.