The Daydreaming Youth

I'd like to go to the ocean. To go, and never return.
I'd haul the anchor, I'd voice the command: "Cast off!"

Out from the shore we'd inch
with cautious paddles we'd churn past sandbars,
and then, as the Vashnars came into view above the Aalen
I'd loose the sail. A clear day, prayers to Vastar on every lip, and
out the sail would billow.

Where will I go, having 'scaped the dreary trodding
that made my life until this day a burden to me?

To the south and north are new sights.
I have heard tell of the whipping sands of Tapoa,
hard by Nocturne's Reach, and of the humid lush
of Tuar, Shala-Khulia, Polyargos, Zanzibaar!
(Zanzibaar that wealthy port! Where merchant lords
train ferocious tigers to be as sweet as kittens, I hear.)

Some years will I wander between the waves, seeing these wonders,
growing rich. In Ka'doloki they'll forget me, think me dead,
until the day my masts break the horizon again.
Great streamers of fine red silk will top those masts.
My oarsmen will row me ashore; I'll stand in the prow of the dinghy,
but my face won't be stern. I'll smile and wave, and later,
by the fire that night, in the meeting place of the village elders,
I'll tell of my adventures, and hear the hearty laughs,
and pass around jugs of spirits until the coals sputter low in the hearth.

When the full moon sets, pallets of spices, gems and silks
will find their place in the market-stalls, and with new sovereigns,
I will commission a new ship, the largest and finest ever built, and name it:
Luck of Hermes.

Then North to the Ilyrean Isles, shaking hoarfrost from the riggings,
warmed by rum and the company of crewmates, venturing down into caves of ice.

Then South to Meropis, braving the choppy seas, bellowing over the noise of storms,
skimming close to the Ragetooth Cliffs.

In the West I will do battle with the Pirates of Meropis! I'll sink the flagship,
capture the pirate king, force him to tell me the secret way to Shipwreck Isle.

In the calm seas of the East I'll take my ease, plying the broad sea lanes,
living easily, fearing nothing, bound to no man.

One day I will look up from some shipboard task. The sun
will be hanging above the blue-green waters, the waters
flat and still out to every horizon. The fish will move
as the currents bid them. Dolphins will leap. Whales
will let forth their deep mournful calls.
From somewhere far off, I'll hear a sweet melody playing.
And I'll listen silently until I sleep, or wake.