V

Long he sailed the deep that glasses The face of God and His majesty; Passed the Horn and the Seas of Grasses, Drifting aimlessly. Time went by with its days that ever Burden the hearts of those who be Far away from their love; whom sever Leagues of the shapeless sea.

Land at last, whose reefs rolled broken Foam of the balked waves everywhere; Land; one tangle of weeds and oaken Wreck and of rocks laid bare. Here and there the sand stretched livid Leagues of famine, one blinding glare; Crags, o’er which gaunt birds winged vivid, Harsh in the earthquake air.

A little cloud in the sunset’s splendor; A little cloud that the sunset stains: Night, and a wisp of a moon that, slender, Dreams of the hurricanes. Winds that stride as with sounding sandals; Winds that the tempest has loosed from chains: Light that leaps like a spear he handles, Shaking his thunder-manes.

Wrenching the world in wreck asunder, Black rebellion of hell and night; Wrath and roar of the rocks and thunder, Flame and the winds that fight ... Beating the drift and the hush together, Waves and winds that the morn makes white; Calm and peace of the tropic weather After the typhoon’s might.

Clouds blow by and the storm’s forgotten. Savage coasts where the sea-cow feeds. Wash of weeds and the sea-weeds rotten. And a dead face in the weeds. None to know him or name him brother; Only the savage in feathers and beads; The South-Sea Islander, fitting another Barb in the shaft he speeds.

Far away where the sea-gulls gather; Far away where the evening falls, Lone she stands where the wild waves lather, Rolling the sea in walls.-- Who shall tell her, the lonely tryster? Tell her of him on whom she calls?-- Suns that beat on his face and blister? Stars? or the sea that crawls?