ails of the ships were in motion,
Ghostly, and slow, and silent-shod,
We gazed where the dusk fled over the ocean,
A great gray hush, like the shadow of God.

The sky dome cut with its compass in sunder
A circle of sea from the darkened land,--
A circle of tremulous waste and wonder,
O'er which one groped with a childish hand.

The true stars came to their stations in heaven,
The false stars shivered deep down in the sea,
And the white crests went like monsters, driven
By winds that never would let them be,

And there, where the elements mingled and muttered,
We stood, each man with a lone dumb heart,
Full of the vastness that never was uttered
By symbol of words or by echo of art.

L'envoi

God willed, who never needed speech,
"Let all things be:"
And, lo, the starry firmament
And land and sea
And his first thought of life that lives
In you and me.

His circle of eternity
We see in part;
Our spirits are his breath, our hearts
Beat from his heart;
Hence we have played as little gods
And called it art.

Lacking his power, we shared his dream
Of perfect things;
Between the tents of hope and sweet
Rememberings
Have sat in ashes, but our souls
Went forth on wings.

Where life fell short of some desire
In you and me,
Feeling for beauty which our eyes
Could never see,
Behold, from out the void we willed
That it should be,

And sometimes dreamed our lisping songs
Of humanhood
Might voice his silent harmony
Of waste and wood,
And he, beholding his and ours,
Might find it good.

[End of original text.]

Notes:

John Charles McNeill was born in Scotland County, near Laurinburg, North
Carolina, on 26 July 1874, and died on 17 October 1907 (when he was 33
years old). He only produced this one volume before he died, though he
planned a second, which was published posthumously. "Songs, Merry and
Sad", first published in Charlotte in 1906, went through at least five
printings over more than 60 years. (This text is taken from the very
first edition.)

Both of McNeill's grandfathers came from Scotland.

McNeill attended Wake Forest College, where he received both his
Bachelor's and Master's degrees. In 1