It is about the mental toughness that Columbus and his crew had to endure during their voyage on the discovery to the new land they called America.
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of
Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless
seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are
gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?”
“Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail
on! and on!’”
“My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and
weak.”
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his
swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught
but seas at dawn?”
“Why, you shall say at break of day,
‘Sail on! sail on!
sail on! and on!’”
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the
blanched mate said:
“Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my
men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread
seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say”—
He said: “Sail on!
sail on! and on!”
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
“This mad sea
shows his teeth to-night.
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted
teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one good word:
What shall we
do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
“Sail on!
sail on! sail on! and on!”
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through
darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck—
A light! A
light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be
Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest
lesson: “On! sail on!”
-Joaquin Miller
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