[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
The Explorer
From home and fireside driven by the lash
Ambition lays on the Appointed One,
When eager men from tasks perceived and done
To new tasks reach, he goes with courage rash,
The Mariner Immortal, where ’mid dash
Of wild wave-shuttles oozy isles are spun;
Or dauntless-eyed outstares a tropic sun,
In lonely forests where the tempests crash.
He meets the simoon where it puts to rout
The grey life of the sands; with flag unfurled
He climbs the pinnacle where Furies shout,
From whence the steel bolts of the storm are hurled;
Or with unconquerable eye looks out
Upon the vast unconquered icy world.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 16
Editor’s notes:
Furies = in Greek mythology, three underworld goddesses (or deities, spirits) of vengeance, described as having hair made of snakes, who cursed and punished criminals (who had escaped justice), evil-doers, and breakers of oaths (singular: Fury) (also known as the Erinyes); can also refer to an avenging spirit or someone who resembles an avenging spirit (especially a woman)
oozy = the quality or state of something that oozes
— not in this context?
simoon = an alternative spelling of “simoom” (also known as “samiel”): a dry, hot, suffocating, sand-laden wind of the deserts of North Africa and the Middles East, generated by the extreme heat of the parched deserts or sandy plains
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