We were advancing, calmly, beneath the stars;
the oblique moon wandered around the bright craft,
and the white terracing of spars and sails
laid upon the ocean its giant shadow.
The cold purity of blazing night
glinted in space and quivered on the water;
you could see The Great Bear and Perseus
high above, as if in a dazzling shadow circus.
On the forward and the mizzen mast,
from stern to bow where lights were darting out,
clear and continuous as chains, commands
suddenly given became linked to one another.
Each gesture served another wider one
and to it devoted the moment of its fruitful ardour,
and the wave carrying the hull and its load
offered them the support of its lucid grandeur.
The sublime immensity exalted the barge,
whose bow marked the waves with a lengthy path.
The man now in conflict with the helm
felt the whole ship shudder between his hands.
He pitched over dread, death and the abysses,
in accord with each star and every volition,
and thus mastering unanimous forces
seemed to subjugate and subdue the infinite.