Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/195

As flashed each yearning anchor
    Through mellow seas afire,
So swift our careless captains
    Rowed each to his desire.

Where lay our loosened harness?
    Where turned our naked feet?
Whose tavern ’mid the palm-trees?
    What quenchings of what heat?
Oh fountain in the desert!
    Oh cistern in the waste!
Oh bread we ate in secret!
    Oh cup we spilled in haste!

The youth new-taught of longing,
    The widow curbed and wan,
The goodwife proud at season,
    And the maid aware of man—
All souls unslaked, consuming
    Defrauded in delays,
Desire not more their quittance
    Than I those forfeit days!

I dreamed to wait my pleasure
    Unchanged my spring would bide:
Wherefore, to wait my pleasure,
    I put my spring aside
Till, first in face of Fortune,
    And last in mazed disdain,
I made Diego Valdez
    High Admiral of Spain.

Then walked no wind ’neath Heaven
    Nor surge that did not aid—
I dared extreme occasion,
    Nor ever one betrayed.