Man made me, and my will Is to my maker still, Whom now the currents con, the rollers steer-- Lifting forlorn to spy Trailed smoke along the sky, Falling afraid lest any keel come near. Wrenched as the lips of thirst, Wried, dried, and split and burst, Bone-bleached my decks, wind-scoured to the graining; And, jarred at every roll, The gear that was my soul Answers the anguish of my beams' complaining. For life that crammed me full, Gangs of the prying gull That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches. For roar that dumbed the gale My hawse-pipes guttering wail, Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted watches. Blind in the hot blue ring Through all my points I swing-- Swing and return to shift the sun anew. Blind in my well-known sky I hear the stars go by, Mocking the prow that can not hold one true! White on my wasted path Wave after wave in wrath Frets 'gainst his fellow, warring where to send me. Flung forward, heaved aside, Witless and dazed I bide The mercy of the comber that shall end me. North where the bergs careen, The spray of seas unseen Smokes round my head and freezes in the falling; South where the corals breed, The footless, floating weed Folds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawling. I that was clean to run My race against the sun-- Strength on the deep, am bawd to all disaster-- Whipped forth by night to meet My sister's careless feet, And with a kiss betray her to my master! Man made me, and my will Is to my maker still-- To him and his, our peoples at their pier: Lifting in hope to spy Trailed smoke along the sky; Falling afraid lest any keel come near! THE SONG OF THE BANJO. You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile-- You mustn't leave a fiddle in the damp-- You couldn't raft an organ up the Nile, And play it in an Equatorial swamp. _I_ travel with the cooking-pots and pails-- _I_'m sandwiched 'tween the coffee and the pork-- And when the dusty column checks and tails, You should hear me spur the rearguard to a walk! With my "_Pilly-willy-winky-winky popp!_" [O it's any tune that comes into my head!] So I keep 'em moving forward till they drop; So I play 'em up to water and to bed. In the silence of the camp before the fight, When it's good to make your will and say your prayer, You can hear my _strumpty-tumpty_ overnight Explaining ten to one was always fair. I'm the prophet of the Utterly Absurd, Of the Patently Impossible and Vain-- And when the Thing that Couldn't has occurred, Give me time to change my leg and go again.