THE CHILD AND THE MARINER

This sailor knows of wondrous lands afar,

More rich than Spain, when the Phoenicians shipped

Silver for common ballast, and they saw

Horses at silver mangers eating grain;

This man has seen the wind blow up a mermaid's hair

Which, like a golden serpent, reared and stretched

To feel the air away beyond her head....

He many a tale of wonder told: of where,

At Argostoli, Cephalonia's sea

Ran over the earth's lip in heavy floods;

And then again of how the strange Chinese

Conversed much as our homely Blackbirds sing.

He told us how he sailed in one old ship

Near that volcano Martinique, whose power

Shook like dry leaves the whole Caribbean seas;

And made the sun set in a sea of fire

Which only half was his; and dust was thick

On deck, and stones were pelted at the mast....

He told how isles sprang up and sank again,

Between short voyages, to his amaze;

How they did come and go, and cheated charts;

Told how a crew was cursed when one man killed

A bird that perched upon a moving barque;

And how the sea's sharp needles, firm and strong,

Ripped open the bellies of big, iron ships;

Of mighty icebergs in the Northern seas,

That haunt the far horizon like white ghosts.

He told of waves that lift a ship so high.

That birds could pass from starboard unto port

Under her dripping keel.

Oh, it was sweet

To hear that seaman tell such wondrous tales....

William H. Davies