Master Oliver

Nay, we brought him a-board the Great Dragon one dawning, When the cold bay was flecked with the crests of white billows And the clouds lay alow on the earth and the sea; He looked not aloft as they hoisted the sail, But with hand on the tiller hallooed to the shipmen In a voice grown so strange, that it scarce had seemed stranger If from the ship Argo, in seemly wise woven On the guard-chamber hangings, some early grey dawning Great Jason had cried, and his golden locks wavered. Then e'en as the oars ran outboard, and dashed In the wind-scattered foam and the sails bellied out, His hand dropped from the tiller, and with feet all uncertain And dull eye he wended him down to the midship, And gazing about for the place of the gangway Made for the gate of the bulwark half open, And stood there and stared at the swallowing sea, Then turned, and uncertain went wandering back sternward, And sat down on the deck by the side of the helmsman, Wrapt in dreams of despair; so I bade them turn shoreward, And slowly he rose as the side grated stoutly 'Gainst the stones of the quay and they cast forth the hawser.-- Unkingly, unhappy, he went his ways homeward.