Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1126

 THOMAS STURGE MOORE

From all encroachment of the crumbling shore,

Where no fresh stream tempers the rich salt wave,

Forcing rash sweetness on sage ocean's brine;

As youthful shepherds pour

Their first love forth to Battos gnarl'd and grave,

Fooling shrewd age to bless some fond design.

Not after storm' but when, for a long spell,

No white-maned horse has raced across the blue,

Put from the beach 1 lest troubled be the well

Less pure thy draught than from such depth were due.

Next weight each buoyant womb down through the flood,

Far down' when, with a cord the lid remove,

And it will fill unseen,

Swift as a heart Love smites sucks back the blood:

This bubbles, deeper born than sighs, shall prove.

If thy bow'd shoulders ache, as thou dost haul

Those groan who climb with rich ore from the mine;

Labour untold round Ilion girt a wall ;

A god toil'd that Achilles' arms might shine;

Think of these things and double knit thy will'

Then, should the sun be hot on thy return,

Cover thy jars with piles of bladder weed,

Dripping, and fragrant still

From sea-wolds wheie it grows like bracken-fern:

A grapnel dragg'd will soon supply thy need.

Home to a tun convey thy precious freight' Wherein, for thirty days, it should abide, Closed, yet not quite closed from the air, and wait While, through dim stillness, slowly doth subside

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