Book contents
100 Poems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
Summary
How It Seemed to Us
A grey flat lying out against the sea,
Where the strait guts are choked with weeded wood
And tangled cordage, moving aimlessly
Upon the lazy leaden ebb or flood –
A waste of stunted gorze and withered tree,
Warped by a wind that chills the running blood
And crisps the slime masked puddles in the mud
A place of desolation verily!
But yet this place is dearer to us two
Than any other spot we know on earth –
The North wind ushered in our passion's birth,
When by the waste my heart went out to you.
And the blind tide at ebb crawled back again
To scatter golden spume flakes at our feet,
And hail us – who had served a time of pain
And being free, had found deliverance sweet.
A Voyage
Our galley chafes against the Quay,
The full tide calls us from the beach
While far away across the sea
Is set the isle that we would reach
The haven where we fain would be.
Let us go forward – doubting not –
Into the grey waste flecked with foam
Adventurers that have no spot
So dear that they should call it home –
Lone men, of all men most forgot
Grim men, with some deep hidden sin,
About their bosom, haggard eyes
That shew the bitter soul within
Warped by a thousand miseries
Pale men, with drawn white lips and thin.
Old men, that lose their faith in good,
And so take service recklessly
In any strife by land or flood,
Wherever evil chance to be,
Prodigal of their life's last blood
Young faces, very old with woe,
Strong men, in evil stronger still
These make our crew and so we go
Climbing each shifting waterhill
That heaves us upward from below.
Our galley lamps are bright with hope,
Our voices ring across the sea
In other lands is wider scope
For all our virile energy
Let be the past, leave we the quay
With firm hands on the tiller rope
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- 100 PoemsOld and New, pp. 1 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013