| |
| WHAT has become of the good ship Kite? | |
| Where is her hull of chosen oak? | |
| Who were the Victors, what the Fight? | |
| The old Wives—whom did they invoke, | |
| That should tell them so uncannily: | 5 |
| |
| “Fell through a crack in the Floor of the Sea”? | |
| |
| “Trafficked with death in a cruise fore-done,” | |
| The Preachers drone to the Salem Folk, | |
| When the Sea has swallowed up the Sun | |
| And the white gulls glint—was it they who spoke? | 10 |
| Wes’-Sou’-West from the Devil’s Quay: | |
| |
| “Fell through a crack in the Floor of the Sea”? | |
| |
| Of the old-time Band there ’s not a man | |
| Who has ever told how the ship went down. | |
| Were they marked by God with the fear-some ban? | 15 |
| Butchered they priests in a sun-white town? | |
| Do they harry Hell where they may be: | |
| |
| “Fell through a crack in the Floor of the Sea”? | |
| |
| Though ye searched the West to the guttering sun, | |
| Or the East till the baffled lights burn black, | 20 |
| Or North to the bergs till the South be won, | |
| The changeling shadows answer back, | |
| And their trembling lips pale piteously: | |
| |
| “Fell through a crack in the Floor of the Sea”? | |
| |
| And when the great grim Finger becks | 25 |
| The whining Seas from their ancient bed, | |
| Shall some tongue speak from the world-old wrecks | |
| To read the log of the Thwarted Dead? | |
| Is there never an end on the mystery: | |
| |
| “Fell through a crack in the Floor of the Sea”? | 30 |
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