On the shoulders of wind-screening seas, steadying her as she drops?
Behind him the blasts without check from the Pole to the Tropic, pursue him,
Heaving up, heaping high, slamming home, the surges he must not regard:
Beneath him the crazy wet deck, and all Ocean on end to undo him;
Above him one desperate sail, thrice-reefed but still buckling the yard!
Under his hand fleet the spokes and return, to be held or set free again;
And she bows and makes shift to obey their behest, till the master-wave comes
And her gunnel goes under in thunder and smokes, and she chokes in the trough of the sea again!
Ere she can lift and make way to its crest; and he, as he nurses her, hums!
These have so utterly mastered their work that they work without thinking;