O perfect Eden of the earth, In poppies sown, in harvest set! O sires, mothers of my West! How shall we count your proud bequest? But yesterday ye gave us birth; We eat your hard-earn'd bread to-day, Nor toil nor spin nor make regret, But praise our petty selves and say How great we are, and all forget The still endurance of the rude Unpolish'd sons of solitude. XIII. And one was glad at morn, but one, The tall old sea-king, grim and gray, Look'd back to where his cabins lay And seem'd to hesitate. He rose At last, as from his dream's repose, From rest that counterfeited rest, And set his blown beard to the west, And drove against the setting sun, Along the levels vast and dun. His steeds were steady, strong, and fleet, The best in all the wide west land, Their manes were in the air, their feet Seem'd scarce to touch the flying sand; The reins were in the reaching hand. They rode like men gone mad, they fled, All day and many days they ran, And in the rear a gray old man Kept watch, and ever turn'd his head, Half eager and half angry, back Along their dusty desert track. And one look'd back, but no man spoke, They rode, they swallow'd up the plain; The sun sank low, he look'd again, With lifted hand and shaded eyes. Then far arear he saw uprise, As if from giant's stride or stroke, Dun dust-like puffs of battle-smoke. He turn'd, his left hand clutch'd the rein, He struck awest his high right hand, His arms were like the limbs of oak, They knew too well the man's command, They mounted, plunged ahead again, And one look'd back, but no man spoke, Of all that sullen iron band, That reached along that barren land. O weary days of weary blue, Without one changing breath, without One single cloud-ship sailing through The blue seas bending round about In one unbroken blotless hue. Yet on they fled, and one look'd back For ever down their distant track. The tent is pitch'd, the blanket spread, The earth receives the weary head, The night rolls west, the east is gray, The tent is struck, they mount, away; They ride for life the livelong day, They sweep the long grass in their track, And one leads on, and one looks back. What scenes they pass'd, what camps at morn, What weary columns kept the road; What herds of troubled cattle low'd, And trumpeted like lifted horn; And everywhere, or road or rest, All things were pointing to the west; A weary, long, and lonesome track, And all led on, but one look'd back.