Life’s city ways are dark, Men mutter by; the wells Of the great waters moan. O death! O sea! O tide! The waters moan like bells; No light, no mark, The soul goes out alone On seas unknown. Stripped of all purple robes, Stripped of all golden lies, I will not be afraid, Truth will preserve through death. Perhaps the stars will rise, The stars like globes; The ship my striving made May see night fade. THE “WANDERER” All day they loitered by the resting ships, Telling their beauties over, taking stock; At night the verdict left my messmates’ lips, “The _Wanderer_ is the finest ship in dock.” I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned, Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean, Saying, “The _Wanderer_, clipper, outward bound, The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen-- “Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail. She sails at sunrise”: but the morrow showed No _Wanderer_ setting forth for me to hail; Far down the stream men pointed where she rode, Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim, Already gone before the stars were gone. I saw her at the sea-line’s smoky rim Grow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on. Soon even her masts were hidden in the haze Beyond the city; she was on her course To trample billows for a hundred days; That afternoon the norther gathered force, Blowing a small snow from a point of east. “Oh, fair for her,” we said, “to take her south.” And in our spirits, as the wind increased, We saw her there, beyond the river mouth, Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark, To glint upon mad water, while the gale Roared like a battle, snapping like a shark, And drunken seamen struggled with the sail. While with sick hearts her mates put out of mind Their little children left astern, ashore, And the gale’s gathering made the darkness blind, Water and air one intermingled roar. Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played, Dancing and singing held our merry crew; The old ship moaned a little as she swayed. It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew! So that at midnight I was called on deck To keep an anchor-watch: I heard the sea Roar past in white procession filled with wreck; Intense bright frosty stars burned over me, And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped, White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock, Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped; Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock. And like a never-dying force, the wind Roared till we shouted with it, roared until Its vast vitality of wrath was thinned, Had beat its fury breathless and was still.