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. And sunnier scenes would grow under his brush, The tropic dawn with all things dropping dew, The darkness and the wonder and the hush, The insensate grey before the marvel grew; Then the veil lifted from the trembling blue, The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the rose, All the expanse of heaven a mind that glows. He turned out of his bunk; the Cook still tossed, One of the other two spoke in his sleep, A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam crossed; Outside there was the ship, the night, the deep. “It is worth while,” the youth said; “I will keep To my resolve, I’ll learn to paint all this. My Lord, my God, how beautiful it is!” Outside was the ship’s rush to the wind’s hurry, A resonant wire-hum from every rope, The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry, The leaning masts in their majestic slope, And all things strange with moonlight: filled with hope By all that beauty going as man bade, He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells were made. THE HORN Even now they shifted suits of sails; they bent The storm-suit ready for the expected time; The mighty wester that the Plate had lent Had brought them far into the wintry clime. At dawn, out of the shadow, there was rime, The dim Magellan Clouds were frosty clear, The wind had edge, the testing-time was near. And then he wondered if the tales were lies Told by old hands to terrify the new, For, since the ship left England, only twice Had there been need to start a sheet or clew, Then only royals, for an hour or two, And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold. What were these gales of which the stories told?