Ships In The Harbour

Like a flock of great blue cranes Resting upon the water, The ships assemble at morning, when the grey light wakes in the east.

Weary, no longer flying, Over the hissing spindrift, through the ravelled clutching sea; No longer over the tops of the waves spinning along north-eastward, In a great irregular wedge before the trade-wind far from land.

But drowsy, mournful, silent, Yet under their bulged projecting bows runs the silver foam of the sunlight, And rebelliously they shake out their plumage of sails, wet and heavy with the rain.