Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag; Word went among us how the broken spar Had gored her captain like an angry stag, And killed her mate a half-day from the bar. She passed to dock upon the top of flood. An old man near me shook his head and swore: “Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood-- There’ll be no trusting in her any more.” We thought it truth, and when we saw her there Lying in dock, beyond, across the stream, We would forget that we had called her fair, We thought her murderess and the past a dream. And when she sailed again, we watched in awe, Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned, What evil lurked behind the thing we saw, What strength was there that thus annulled man’s hand, How next its triumph would compel man’s will Into compliance with external Fate, How next the powers would use her to work ill On suffering men; we had not long to wait. For soon the outcry of derision rose, “Here comes the _Wanderer_!” the expected cry. Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with those Yelled from the shipping as they towed her by. She passed us close, her seamen paid no heed To what was called: they stood, a sullen group, Smoking and spitting, careless of her need, Mocking the orders given from the poop. Her mates and boys were working her; we stared. What was the reason of this strange return, This third annulling of the thing prepared? No outward evil could our eyes discern. Only like someone who has formed a plan Beyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed, Mocked and deserted by the common man, Made half divine to me for having failed. We learned the reason soon; below the town A stay had parted like a snapping reed, “Warning,” the men thought, “not to take her down.” They took the omen, they would not proceed. Days passed before another crew would sign. The _Wanderer_ lay in dock alone, unmanned, Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign, Bound under curses not to leave the land. But under passing Time fear passes too; That terror passed, the sailors’ hearts grew bold. We learned in time that she had found a crew And was bound out and southwards as of old. And in contempt we thought, “A little while Will bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled. It is herself; she cannot change her style; She has the habit now of being foiled.” So when a ship appeared among the haze, We thought, “The _Wanderer_ back again”; but no, No _Wanderer_ showed for many, many days, Her passing lights made other waters glow. But we would often think and talk of her, Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then, Upon what ocean she was _Wanderer_, Bound to the cities built by foreign men.