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Sailor’s wife
A long word: wait.
I understand water
but not ships
or the poor body,
having it in mind to sail
my own bed.
Poèmes sur le thème : sailor
Poèmes sur le thème « sailor » sur Poets.by.
A sailor’s life
All afternoon I row alone
in rings
in too much wine.
Deliverance
On a grey day by a grey sea
As the tide flees this steady shore,
Two children —
altogether mindless of Monday
and the grim anguish of their parents,
Greet white-capped waves with ecstasy
And far away, a three-sailed bark,
Poised on the edge of sky and sea
Slips silent into mystery.
Who stands before the mast?
Is it the shadow of the man?
Or does this brim-full heart,
holding his hand,
Chart a sure course by some forgotten star
To bring him home again?
The Tropic Dawn
The tropic dawn is beautiful at sea,
The clouds respond so readily to light.
Though overhead the stars continue bright
And scattered like a broken string of beads,
The eastward doors of night are opened wide
And light floods all the ocean floor inside.
The sun gets up, a painter out of bed,
To work again his canvas of the world,
To change black water into blue instead,
To tint what little frantic foam gets hurled
From two waves’ temperaments with ruby fire,
And make the sea a thing for man’s desire.
The day comes gently, working through the clouds,
Which light and burn with brilliance many-hued.
A sailor somewhere singing in the shrouds
With naked chest and feet and arms tattooed,
The Ballad of the Dead Sailor
Oh, where are the rest of my shipmates,
And why am I not at sea,
And what is this lonely valley
Where no one is but me?
Have they sailed away without me?
Will they ever again return?
I never thought when he was dead
A sailor’s heart would yearn.
Oh, how did I die? In battle?
Or how did I die? Asleep?
Were there any who laughed when they heard it?
Were any too stunned to weep?
But who dressed me up so neatly?
Who brushed and combed my hair?
Some fellow just doing his duty
Or someone who tried to care?
Night Watch
His ship is on the ocean
But the sailor lad’s ashore,
And deeply, deeply sleeping,
He’ll waken nevermore.
We buried him atop the hill
That overlooks the bay,
And one there was who walked from there
With slower steps away.
And one there is on watch at night
Who wears the strangest smile,
Because he sees a specter lad
And talks with him awhile.
Across the world he comes to me,
And far horizons dim,
And I await the day when I,
Instead, shall go to him.
Morning Guard
Where the old road meets the new road
I stand the guard at morn,
Where one comes winding down the hill,
The other, through it torn.
October’s friendly fingers dipped
In every mellow shade
Have touched the leaves on all the trees
That stand within the glade.
In distant treetops I behold,
As I have seen in clouds,
The faces of my heroes
Or dead men in their shrouds.
The marching columns pass me by,
All sailor lads in blue.
And some will wink, and some will smile,
The way young fellows do.
The Sea and the Forest
A woman appears on deck.
In her shy look the sailors
Inhale the perfume of swamp roots
And certain dark streets of Marseilles.
She stands still in a shadow.
Voices of children rising from the sea,
Air bells and flowers. . . .
Or maybe she is thinking of a house,
One of those little streets in Paris
Where lovers twitter like canaries.
Or maybe it's a forest.
The leaves are hushed and still.
All this, and more, the sailors
Think of while she stands,
One hand lightly resting on the rail.
Farewell, my old pine forest!
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.
Sailing of the Glory
Merrily shouted all the sailors
As they left the town behind;
Merrily shouted they and gladdened
At the slip-slap of the wind.
But envious were those faint home-keepers,
Faint land-lovers, as they saw
How the Glory dipped and staggered--
Envying saw
Pass the ship while all her sailors
Merrily shouted.
Far and far on eastern waters
Sailed the ship and yet sailed on,
While the townsmen, faint land-lovers,
Thought, "How long is't now she's gone?
Now, maybe, Bombay she touches,
Now strange craft about her throng";
Seumas Beg
A MAN was sitting underneath a tree
Outside the village, and he asked me what
Name was upon this place, and said that he
Was never here before. He told a lot
Of stories to me too. His nose was flat.
I asked him how it happened, and he said
The first mate of the Mary Ann done that
With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead,
And jolly good job too ; and he'd have gone
A long way to have killed him, and he had
A gold ring in one ear ; the other one
" Was bit off by a crocodile, bedad."
That's what he said. He taught me how to chew.
He was a real nice man. He liked me too.