. Salt-water poems and ballads. id. How white with frost her yards are on the of the men about me answer made,That is not frost, but all her sails are tore, Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;Her best foul-weather suit gone. It was masts were white with rags of tattered sailMany as gannets when the fish are due. Beauty in desolation was her crowned array a glory that had been;She faltered towrds us like a swan that although ruined she was still a queen. Put back with all her sails gone, went the word;Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran,The sea
. Salt-water poems and ballads. id. How white with frost her yards are on the of the men about me answer made,That is not frost, but all her sails are tore, Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;Her best foul-weather suit gone. It was masts were white with rags of tattered sailMany as gannets when the fish are due. Beauty in desolation was her crowned array a glory that had been;She faltered towrds us like a swan that although ruined she was still a queen. Put back with all her sails gone, went the word;Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran,The sea that stove her boats in killed her third;She has been gutted and has lost a man. So, as though stepping to a funeral passed defeated homewards whence she came,Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch,A wild bird that misfortune had made tame. She was refitted soon: another tookThe dead mans office; then the singers hoveHer capstan till the snapping hawsers shook;Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove. fa-; -ir n. o PIo u ai THE WANDERER 139 Again they towed her seawards, and again We, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim, Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main. And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim; And wished her well, and wondered, as she died,How, when her canvas had been sheeted home,Her quivering length would sweep into her stride,Making the greenness milky with her foam. But when we rose next morning, we discernedHer beauty once again a shattered thing;Towing to dock the Wanderer returned,A woifnded sea-bird with a broken wing. f A spar was gone, her riggings disarrayTold of a worse disaster than the last;Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay,Drooping and beating on the broken mast. Half-mast upon her flagstafi hung her flag;Word went among us how the broken sparHad gored her captain like an angry stag,And killed her mate a half-day from the bar. She passed to dock upon the top of old man near me shook his head and swore
Size: 963px × 2594px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthormasefiel, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1916
