Columbus

“Columbus” opens in the middle of the action: It is immediately clear to the reader that Christopher Columbus and his men have been sailing for quite some time, and their voyage of discovery has not yet reached its end. The speaker creates suspense in the opening lines by describing the liminal space Columbus’s ship is currently traversing between the known and the unknown, as behind the ship lie “the gray Azores / Behind the gates of Hercules” (Lines 1-2), while stretching before the ship is nothing but “shoreless seas” (Line 4) as far as the eye can see. The “gray Azores” (Line 1) refers to Portugal’s island archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, symbolizing the “Old World” of European civilization and Portugal’s own voyages of discovery during that era. The “gates of Hercules” (Line 2) are both a geographical reference to the Pillars of Hercules by the Strait of Gibraltar, and an invocation of the world of Greek mythology and the fabled Twelve Labors of Hercules: a Greek demigod. With these two allusions, the speaker sets the tone for the voyage: It is both a daring attempt to leave behind the familiar and discover something new, and also rather heroic in nature—it is hinted that Columbus himself may be a contemporary Hercules, performing a new feat worthy of a classical epic.

The first stanza also introduces the figure of the ship’s mate, who is worried about the dangers the ship and its crew are facing. The mate turns to religion for solace, urging Columbus that they “must […] pray” (Line 5), for it is nighttime, and the ship has entered uncharted waters. Most worrisome of all, navigation has become virtually impossible, since “the very stars are gone” (Line 6). But when the mate asks Columbus, his “Brave Adm’r’l” (Line 7), what order should be given to the crew, Columbus responds by urging the mate to “Sail on! sail on! and on!” (Line 8)—an order that becomes a refrain throughout the poem and which ends each of the poem’s stanzas.

In creating this dialogue between the mate and Columbus, the speaker gives the poem some dramatic tension while also setting up an important contrast present throughout the poem: the contrast between the pragmatist (the mate) and the visionary (Columbus). While the mate continues to raise objections based on practical concerns, Columbus remains committed to his mission and faces down every danger undaunted.

In the second stanza, the mate warns Columbus that there are serious problems even within the ship. The ship’s crew are “grow[ing] mutinous day by day” (Line 9), suggesting that the voyage has gone on for so long that the crew is losing faith in their mission and might rebel against the authority of the mate and Columbus. He describes the condition of the crew as “ghastly wan and weak” (Line 10), implying that the men are in poor health and potentially undernourished. The mate asks Columbus what they will tell the unhappy crew if daylight still fails to reveal any sighting of a new land (“‘What shall I say […] / If we sight naught but seas at dawn?’” (Lines 14-15)). Columbus’s answer is the same as before: They will simply keep on sailing (Lines 15-16), even if no land is in sight.

In the third and fourth stanzas, the mate describes the dangers surrounding the ship, namely the dangerous conditions in which they are making their voyage. In the third stanza, the speaker describes the mate as appearing “blanched” (Line 18), suggesting the mate’s face is pale with fear. By this point in the voyage, the mate seems to despair of receiving divine aid—as if even God has abandoned the ship to its fate—in the lines, “‘Why, now not even God would know / Should I and all my men fall dead’” (Lines 19-20) and “‘For God from these dread seas is gone’” (Line 22). The mate’s vivid descriptions of potential anonymous death at sea and a place from which even a god “is gone” (Line 22) reinforces the danger and isolation the crew face during the voyage.

In the fourth stanza, the mate describes the seas they are sailing as stormy, warning Columbus “‘the mad sea shows his teeth tonight’” (Line 26), and this wild sea could “bite” (Line 28) the ship and its crew, alluding to the possibility of shipwreck during the storm. The mate’s fear seems to reach its climax here in the fourth stanza, as he asks Columbus, “What shall we do when hope is gone?” (Line 30). But as ever, Columbus remains unfazed, responding to the mate’s growing fears with the same urging as before: “Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!” (Line 32)

Finally, in the fifth and closing stanza of the poem, the dialogue between the mate and Columbus ceases, and the speaker presents a portrait of Columbus as the undaunted leader of this mission, for although he is “pale and worn” (Line 33), he nevertheless refuses to abandon his post: “[H]e kept his deck” (Line 33). Columbus will not give up hope; he continues to gaze “through darkness” (Line 34), as the speaker exclaims about “that night / Of all dark nights!” (Lines 34-35), creating a sense of momentum about what the dawn will show the crew when it breaks. The speaker reveals the answer in the poem’s closing lines: The light grows and grows, becoming not just the literal light of dawn but the figurative light of new discoveries and new beginnings: “[The light] grew to be Time’s burst of dawn” (Line 38).

The speaker concludes the poem by telling the reader Columbus achieved his objective in finding a new land (“He gained a world,” e.g., the New World, (Line 39)), and in doing so, also became an inspirational figure due to his unflagging resilience in the face of adversity: “[H]e gave that world / Its grandest lesson; ‘On! sail on!’” (Lines 39-40)