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From “Poems of Travel”
THEY went down to the sea in ships, | |
| In ships they went down to the sea. | |
| In barks hewn of oak-tree strips, | |
| In galleys with skin-sewn sails, | |
| In triremes, caravels, brigs— | 5 |
| Frail flimsily rolling rigs— | |
| They went down where the huge wave rips, | |
| Where the black storm lashes and hales. | |
| They went down to the sea in ships, | |
| To the sounding sorrowing sea. | 10 |
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| They go down to the sea—oh me!— | |
| What ships that outbrave the sea, | |
| What ships that outrun the gale, | |
| With a feather of steam for a sail | |
| And a whirling shaft for an oar, | 15 |
| Are the ships that my brothers build | |
| To carry me over the sea, | |
| That my hand, with treasures filled, | |
| May knock at the morrow’s door! | |
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| Steel hulls, impenetrable | 20 |
| To the waves that tease and pull, | |
| Bright engines that answer the beat | |
| Of their foam-slippered dancing feet, | |
| Hot fires that shudder and drive, | |
| Close-tended, untiring, sure— | 25 |
| Like queen-bees deep in the hive | |
| Who labor and serve and endure— | |
| All these are down below | |
| Far under the slippery water, | |
| While the babe sleeps soft in his bed, | 30 |
| And the banquet table is spread, | |
| And my neighbor’s laughing daughter | |
| Trims her hair with a rose-red bow. | |
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| They went down to the sea in ships, | |
| In ships they went down to the sea. | 35 |
| And the sea had a million lips, | |
| And she laughed in her gorge for glee. | |
| And the floor of the sea is strewn | |
| With tempest trophies dread, | |
| And the deep-sea currents croon | 40 |
| As they wash through the bones of the dead. | |
| But the ships that my brothers build— | |
| Ah, they mock at the bleak storm’s rage; | |
| And their fiery hearts are thrilled | |
| When he throws them his battle gauge. | 45 |
| On the sea-foam they lean for a pillow; | |
| They drive without paddle or sail | |
| Straight over the mountainous billow, | |
| Straight on through the blustering gale! | |
| Oh, they shake out gay flags as they run, | 50 |
| Flags that flutter and gleam in the sun! | |
| From the tip of their turrets above | |
| They send word of the storm to the shore; | |
| And they hear from afar through the roar, | |
| Down the cloud-built aisles of the sky, | 55 |
| Some land-bound lady’s cry | |
| To her ocean-wandering love. | |
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| They go down to the sea in ships, | |
| In ships they go down to the sea. | |
| And my brothers, the masterful, free, | 60 |
| Fear no more the white foam of her lips, | |
| The sweet wild kiss of the sea! | |
| They have won her, she harks to their wooing, | |
| The love of ten thousand years, | |
| The suing, the wild undoing, | 65 |
| The faith unto death, the tears. | |
| Oh, their glory her song shall be, | |
| Soft, soft is the kiss of her lips! | |
| They go down to the sea in ships, | |
| In ships they go down to the sea. | 70 |
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