How often had the evening sea
Which you so much admired
With archipelagos of foam
Been bright and ruby-fired.
Oh, all these things tonight are here
Upon a distant sea,
But I have found no other one
To stand and watch with me.
DECK-APE
He was just a little deck-ape
With a happy kind of smile,
And a line of boyish chatter
That could make you laugh awhile.
He was just a little deck-ape
Always ready with a hand
When a shipmate needed someone
Who would help or understand.
He was just a little deck-ape,
And we buried him at sea
When he stopped a strafer’s bullet
That was meant, I think, for me.
SAILOR BOY
Upon a railway station bench he lies,
Majestic image of a heathen god
Cast down unknown centuries of time,
And on his back for all the world to see.
He sleeps the silence of unspoken love,
A smile upon his lips, his cheeks aglow
With all the fire of his rhythmic heart
Betraying there the secret of his dream.
And breath and life are one where fills his chest,
And where the texture of his thighs impress
The pagan phallic frontlet in his loins
He testifies unknowingly to youth.