All his hope is a fear-whipped whim,

All directions are one to him.

There are seekers of wisdom no less absurd,

Son Hang, than thy fish that would be a bird.

JOHN GRAY

MESSMATES

He gave us all a good-bye cheerily
At the first dawn of day;

We dropped him down the side full drearily
When the light died away.

It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a long, long night that lags a-creeping there,
Where the Trades and the tides roll over him
And the great ships go by.

He's there alone with green seas rocking him
For a thousand miles round;

He's there alone with dumb things mocking him,
And we're homeward bound.

It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a dead cold night that lags a-creeping there,
While the months and the years roll over him
And the great ships go by.

I wonder if the tramps come near enough—
As they thrash to and fro,

And the battleship's bells ring clear enough

To be heard down below;

If through all the lone watch that he's a-keeping there, And the long, cold night that lags a-creeping there

The voices of the sailor-men shall comfort him

When the great ships go by.

HENRY NEWBOLT

FROM KING RICHARD III.

I SAW a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, these were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mock'd the dead bones that were scatter'd by.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE

THE world below the brine,

Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangles, openings and pink turf,

Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white and gold, the play of light through the water,

Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers,

Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,

The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,

The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,

Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those oceandepths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,

The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

WALT WHITMAN

SONG FROM THE TEMPEST

FULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
These are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell;
Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them-ding-dong, bell.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE PIPER OF ARLL

THERE was in Arll a little cove

Where the salt wind came cool and free:
A foamy beach that one would love,
If he were longing for the sea.

A brook hung sparkling on the hill,
The hill swept far to ring the bay;
The bay was faithful, wild or still,
To the heart of the ocean far away.

There were three pines above the comb
That, when the sun flared and went down,
Grew like three warriors reiving home
The plunder of a burning town.

A piper lived within the grove,
Tending the pasture of his sheep;

His heart was swayed with faithful love,
From the springs of God's ocean clear and deep.

And there a ship one evening stood,
Where ship had never stood before;
A pennon bickered red as blood,
An angel glimmered at the prore.

About the coming on of dew,
The sails burned rosy, and the spars,
Were gold, and all the tackle grew
Alive with ruby-hearted stars.

The piper heard an outland tongue,
With music in the cadenced fall;
And when the fairy lights were hung,
The sailors gathered one and all.

And leaning on the gunwales dark,
Crusted with shells and dashed with foam,
With all the dreaming hills to hark,
They sang their longing songs of home.

When the sweet airs had fled away,
The piper, with a gentle breath,
Moulded a tranquil melody

Of lonely love and longed for death.

When the fair sound began to lull,
From out the fire flies and the dew,
A silence held the shadowy hull,
Until the eerie song was through.

Then from the dark and dreary deck,
An alien song began to thrill;
It mingled with the drumming beck,
And stirred the braird upon the hill.

Beneath the stars each sent to each
A message tender, till at last
The piper slept upon the beach,
The sailors slumbered round the mast.

Still as a dream till nearly dawn,
The ship was bosomed on the tide ;
The streamlet murmuring on and on,
Bore the sweet water to her side.

Then shaking out her lawny sails,
Forth on the misty sea she crept;
She left the dawning of the dales,
Yet in his cloak the piper slept.

And when he woke he saw the ship,
Limned black against the crimson sun;
Then from the disc he saw her slip,
A wraith of shadow-she was gone.

He threw his mantle on the beach,
He went apart like one distraught,
His lips were moved his desperate speech
Stormed his inviolable thought.

He broke his human-throated reed,
And threw it in the idle rill;
But when its passion had its meed,
He found it in the eddy still.

He mended well the patient flue,
Again he tried its various stops;
The closures answered right and true,
And starting out in piercing drops,

A melody began to drip

That mingled with a ghostly thrill
The vision-spirit of the ship,

The secret of his broken will.

Beneath the pines he piped and swayed,
Master of passion and of power;
He was his soul and what he played,
Immortal for a happy hour.

He, singing into nature's heart,
Guiding his will by the world's will,
With deep, unconscious, childlike art
Had sung his soul out and was still.

!