From Portugal, to take us: we are dead!'
`Hold Westward, pilot,' calmly I replied.
So when the last land down the horizon died,
`Go back, go back!' they prayed: `our hearts are lead.' --
`Friends, we are bound into the West,' I said.
Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side.
`See' (so they wept) `God's Warning! Admiral, turn!' --
`Steersman,' I said, `hold straight into the West.'
Then down the night we saw the meteor burn.
`So do the very heavens in fire protest:
Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain!' --
`Hold straight into the West,' I said again.

VI.

"Next drive we o'er the slimy-weeded sea.
`Lo! herebeneath' (another coward cries)
`The cursed land of sunk Atlantis lies:
This slime will suck us down -- turn while thou'rt free!' --
`But no!' I said, `Freedom bears West for me!'
Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise,
And day by day the keel to westward flies,
My Good my people's Ill doth come to be:
`Ever the winds into the West do blow;
Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go;
Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main.
For Christ's sake, parley, Admiral! Turn, before
We sail outside all bounds of help from pain!' --
`Our help is in the West,' I said once more.