Our mariner’s last landfall was this shore:

My namesake stood, four hundred years ago,

The empty Caspian at his back, and saw

A shelving view I intimately know –

Clean, silent air and noble poplar trees,

A marshy plain beyond which mountains rise,

The snow-line and the sky – all this he sees –

The colours fresh and calm before his eyes.

Fresh as your fading figure in my mind:

You look back to your little ship, then stare

As if the riches you had hoped to find

Were somehow present in the limpid air.

You walk towards the limits of my sight:

I see you stumble in the dusty light.