Morris Gilbert

From “The Near East”

THIS water is all rich; and no great wave,

Rushing, can ever sweep from the old ooze

The witnesses of simple men who gave

Their lives here to the sea.

Our ship’s foot goes

Warily now, for here she treads above

The globèd mortal homes of dreams all drowned.

Sometimes, as if a man smiled at his love,

A smile turns in the water. Round and round,

Sometimes, a hundred cries go swimming, while

Such common woes and hopes are ocean-freight,

That every eddy of the grey sea-mile

Is strewn with ardors inarticulate

And homing memories.

Yet this must be:

That men’s ghosts ever shame old pagan Earth,

With human blood crimson grey Neptune’s sea,

Snap the Fates’ thread with high impetuous mirth,

Cast in the dicing game mortality,

Slip from the moorings of sweet flesh, and then

Clean past the loom of the Ultimate Islands ride,

To bring a vision down to the sea again

In ships, and keep the faith, and take the tide.