When I came home from wanderings
In a tall chattering ship,
I thought a hundred happy things,
Of people, places, and such things
As I came sailing home.
The tall ship moved how slowly on
With me and hundreds more,
That thought not then of wanderings,
But of unwhispered, longed-for things,
Familiar things of home.
For not in miles seemed other lands
Far off, but in long years
As we came near to England then;
Even the tall ship heard secret things
As she moved trembling home.
It was at dawn. The chattering ship
O little lady with the yellow fan
Why are you so sad?
Why does a tear stand
Like a tea-flower bud upon your cheek?
Your dress is of blue and scarlet silk,
Your slippers are embroidered with gems,
A gold and emerald butterfly has lighted in your hair,
Your serving-maid stands near
Awaiting your command,
And if you lifted but one slender finger
A chariot would come and carry you away to your father's palace.
Why are you so sad?
It is because the ships beside the shore
Spread their dark sails to the sea-blowing breeze;
The tide is high, and soon will set toward the distant islands,
And there is a gleam of swords and armour,
Red sunlight fades from wood and town,
The western sky is crimson-dyed,
Gaunt shadow-ships drift silent down
Upon the river's gleaming tide.
The hills' clear outlines melt away
Or veil themselves in purple light,
And burning thoughts that vexed the day
Become fair visions of the night.
Little ships of whitest pearl
With sailors who were ancient kings,
Come over the sea when my little girl
Sings.
And if my little girl should weep,
Little ships with torn sails
Go headlong down among the deep
Whales.
She paved the way with perfume sweet
Of flowers that moved like winds alight,
And never weary grew my feet
Wandering through the spring's delight.
She dropped her sweet fife to her lips
And lured me with her melodies,
To where the great big wandering ships
Put out into the peaceful seas.
But when the year grew chill and brown,
And all the wings of Summer flown,
Within the tumult of a town
She left me to grow old alone.
Thro' the faintest filigree
Over the dim waters go
Little ships of Arcady
When the morning moon is low.
I can hear the sailors' song
From the blue edge of the sea,
Passing like the lights along
Thro' the dusky filigree.
Then where moon and waters meet
Sail by sail they pass away,
With little friendly winds replete
Blowing from the breaking day.
And when the little ships have flown,
Dreaming still of Arcady
I look across the waves, alone
In the misty filigree.
I saw the little quiet town,
And the whitewashed gables on the hill,
And laughing children coming down
The laneway to the mill.
Wind-blushes up their faces glowed,
And they were happy as could be,
The wobbling water never flowed
So merry and so free.
One little maid withdrew aside
To pick a pebble from the sands.
Her golden hair was long and wide,
And there were dimples on her hands.
And when I saw her large blue eyes,
What was the pain that went thro' me?
Why did I think on Southern skies
And ships upon the sea?
When it was Grandmother Barbara's day,
We lived on a hill, and down below,
Beyond the pasture and the trees,
A river used to go.
The water was very wide and blue
And deep, and my! it was a sight
To see the ships go up and down,
And all the sails were white.
And Grandmother Barbara used to wait
Beside the window or the door.
She never was too tired of it
To watch the river any more.
And we could hardly see across,
And the water was blue, as blue as the sky,
And all day long and all day long
We watched the little ships go by.
The well-made sonnet takes the azure sea
Proud in her beauty as a halcyon,
Her timbers chosen words, and melody
Filling her sails of rhyme. She passes on
In majesty and calm, but these my lines
Are like a crazy and a leaky boat,
Clumsily made of warped and twisted pines
That hardly on the troubled waters float.
Now comes an arrogant great wave ahead
That swamps the blunted bow and spumes along ;
Into the storm I drift in doubt and dread,
Patient, not brave, enduring but not strong.
I know not on this huge and angry sea
How far my wretched ship can carry me.
Life ushers some as heirs-elect
To weather wind and gale;
Here lies a man whose ships were wrecked
Ere he could hoist a sail.
Count these reminiscences like money.
The Greeks had their picnics under another name.
The Romans wore glad rags and told their neighbors,
"What of it?"
The Carlovingians hauling logs on carts, they too
Stuck their noses in the air and stuck their thumbs to
their noses
And tasted life as a symphonic dream of fresh eggs
broken over a frying pan left by an uncle who
killed men with spears and short swords.
Count these reminiscences like money.
Drift, and drift on, white ships.
Sailing the free sky blue, sailing and changing and
sailing,
Oh, I remember in the blood of my dreams how they
sang before me.
Strolling along
By the teeming docks,
I watch the ships put out.
Black ships that heave and lunge
And move like mastodons
Arising from lethargic sleep.
The fathomed harbor
Calls them not nor dares
Them to a strain of action,
But outward, on and outward,
Sounding low-reverberating calls,
Shaggy in the half-lit distance,
They pass the pointed headland.
View the wide, far-lifting wilderness
And leap with cumulative speed
To test the challenge of the sea.