S.S. Lusitania

I read in Dante how that horned light, Which hid Ulysses, waved itself and said: “Following the sun, we set our vessel’s head To the great main; pass’d Seville on the right

“And Ceuta on the left; then southward sped. And last in air, far off, dim rose a Height. We cheer’d; but from it rush’d a blast of might, And struck—and o’er us the sea-waters spread.”

I dropp’d the book, and of my child I thought In his long black ship speeding night and day O’er those same seas; dark Teneriffe rose, fraught

With omen; “Oh! were that Mount pass’d,” I say. Then the door opens and this card is brought: “Reach’d Cape Verde Islands, Lusitania.”