Page:Flower of youth, poems in war time, Tynan, 1915.djvu/65

Rh THE OPEN ROAD

roads of the Sea

Are thronged with merchantmen;

East and West, North and South

They go and come again.

All precious merchandise

They bear in their hold:

Lest the people be starving

In the night and cold.

Now tell me, good merchants,

How this thing can be

That the white ships are thronging

The roads of the sea?

For there's death in the skies

And there's death on the earth;

And men talked of famine

And a frozen hearth.