| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
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| Mariners |
| | | David Morton |
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| MEN who have loved the ships they took to sea, | |
| Loved the tall masts, the prows that creamed with foam, | |
| Have learned, deep in their hearts, how it might be | |
| That there is yet a dearer thing than home. | |
| The decks they walk, the rigging in the stars, | 5 |
| The clean boards counted in the watch they keep— | |
| These, and the sunlight on the slippery spars, | |
| Will haunt them ever, waking and asleep. | |
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| Ashore, these men are not as other men: | |
| They walk as strangers through the crowded street, | 10 |
| Or, brooding by their fires, they hear again | |
| The drone astern, where gurgling waters meet, | |
| Or see again a wide and blue lagoon, | |
And a lone ship that rides there with the moon.
Harper’s Magazine | |
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