(A man speaks)
Was that a cry you say you heard?
Where? No. The winds would drown it quite.
No sound would reach the shore to-night,
Except the scream of some wild bird.
A flash, you say, that cut the rain
Like a red knife? It could not be;
There's nothing living in this sea.
Don't look so frightened. What—again?
The lifeboat! They are hailing me.
They need a man for the stern oar;
The wind drives dead upon this shore,
A rudder's helpless in this sea.
III
(A woman speaks).
No. That was not a scream I heard;
One could not hear so far away.
That flash was but the breakers' spray,
That cry, the note of some wild bird.
IV
MORNING
I would not know him had I not
Once marked for him that tattoo spot—
A ship with flying-jib and spanker,
And underneath a chain and anchor.