The watch was set, the night came, and the men Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep, Bunched like the dead; still, like the dead, as when Plague in a city leaves none even to weep. The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep; The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars: South-west by south she staggered under the stars. Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake Thinking of his unfitness for the sea. Each failure, each derision, each mistake, There in the life not made for such as he; A morning grim with trouble sure to be, A noon of pain from failure, and a night Bitter with men's contemning and despite. This in the first beginning, the green leaf, Still in the Trades before bad weather fell; What harvest would he reap of hate and grief When the loud Horn made every life a hell? When the sick ship lay over, clanging her bell, And no time came for painting or for drawing, But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing? Hell, he expected,--hell. His eyes grew blind; The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled, And then a gush of pity calmed his mind. The cruel torment of his thought was muffled, Without, on deck, an old, old seaman shuffled, Humming his song, and through the open door A moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor. The green bunk curtains moved, the brass rings clicked, The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning, The moonbeam's moving finger touched and picked, And all the stars in all the sky were burning. "This is the art I've come for, and am learning, The sea and ships and men and travelling things. It is most proud, whatever pain it brings." He leaned upon his arm and watched the light Sliding and fading to the steady roll; This he would some day paint, the ship at night, And sleeping seamen tired to the soul; The space below the bunks as black as coal, Gleams upon chests, upon the unlit lamp, The ranging door-hook, and the locker clamp. This he would paint, and that, and all these scenes, And proud ships carrying on, and men their minds, And blues of rollers toppling into greens, And shattering into white that bursts and blinds, And scattering ships running erect like hinds, And men in oilskins beating down a sail High on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail, With faces ducked down from the slanting drive Of half-thawed hail mixed with half-frozen spray, The roaring canvas, like a thing alive, Shaking the mast, knocking their hands away The foot-ropes jerking to the tug and sway, The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims, And icicles on the south-wester brims.