Three captains lounged before the blaze Of drift wood burning cheerily, And they warmed to ventures of other days In salty tales of the sea. Tarred were the ropes coiled under the eaves, Tar had dripped on the warping floor, Beach sand fluttered like withered leaves And sifted under the door. The salt that crusted the chimney wide Had tinged the flames with yellows and reds; Salt were the wavelets that lapped outside, And white as the salt were their heads. Visions of many a tropic clime In the firelight seemed to come and go; Till friends they had known in their youthful prime Took form in the radiant glow. As time cracked voices droned away Through strange adventures in days gone by, One voyaged with them to far Cathay And spice swept Araby. Quaint were the islands they knew so well Zanzibar, Pitcairn, and Celebes; Isles enchanted where reigned the spell Of other and lonelier seas. Seas that cringed at the typhoon’s wrath When his thunderous roar was heard; Silent seas in the calm of death Where never a whisper stirred. And the pulses quickened to hear their tales of voices hailing from spectral sands; Of dead men’s ships with their ghastly sails Unfurled by skeleton hands! Legends weird of an unplumbed deep Where galleons foundered in days of yore; And sightless monsters that grope and creep In the slime of the ocean floor. Sagas of shipwreck in days long gone, Of pirate treasure and revelry, Of clashing cutlass and fights hard won In some blood stained mutiny. On decks awash how they held their own When faced by the knives of a cursing crew. And they spoke of shoals and of ledges lone Which only the sea birds knew. Youth flushed once more on withered cheeks, Bent shoulders squared defiantly, At such deeds as fired the warlike Greeks In their legended Odyssey. And the murmuring tide ebbed once again, And the fire burned low e’re the captains three Recalled with a sigh they were old, old men Who were done with their toil on the sea. STORM SIGNALS Red blur against the western sky A banner flutters threateningly The sport of every treacherous air It flaunts its warning note - “Beware” Each wrinkle in its protean form A portent of impending storm. The darkening smudge where sank the sun In bloody embers smoulders on With brooding wrath. But angrier red Invests that standard with the dread Of unseen terrors. For it holds Death’s shadow in its writhing folds! NEPTUNE’S COURSERS