She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers Someone had brought her from Ispahan, And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms, And the coral-hafted feather fan; But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight, And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran. She cared not a rap for all the big planets, For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran, And all the big planets cared nothing for her, That small impertinent charlatan; But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight, And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan. SAILING SHIPS Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bay I with the kestrels shared the cleanly day, The candid day; wind-shaven, brindled turf; Tall cliffs; and long sea-line of marbled surf From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish Nore Lipping the bulwarks of the English shore, While many a lovely ship below sailed by On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely; And after each, oh, after each, my heart Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart, I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide That might befall their beauty and their pride; Shared first with them the blessed void repose Of oily days at sea, when only rose The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheen Of satin water indolently green, When for'ard the crew, caps tilted over eyes, Lay heaped on deck; slept; mumbled; smoked; threw dice; The sleepy summer days; the summer nights (The coast pricked out with rings of harbour-lights), The motionless nights, the vaulted nights of June When high in the cordage drifts the entangled moon, And blocks go knocking, and the sheets go slapping, And lazy swells against the sides come lapping; And summer mornings off red Devon rocks, Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocks; Shared swifter days, when headlands into ken Trod grandly; threatened; and were lost again, Old fangs along the battlemented coast; And followed still my ship, when winds were most Night-purified, and, lying steeply over, She fled the wind as flees a girl her lover, Quickened by that pursuit for which she fretted, Her temper by the contest proved and whetted. Wild stars swept overhead; her lofty spars Reared to a ragged heaven sown with stars As leaping out from narrow English ease She faced the roll of long Atlantic seas.