Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/166

THE CARIB SEA The dun Sargasso weed

Slips from before our prow,

And its sight makes strong our will,

As of old the Genoese's,

When he stood in his hour of need

On the Santa Maria's bow.

Ay, and the winds at play

Toy with these peopled islands,

Each of itself as well

Naught but a brave New World,

Where the crab and sea-slug stay

In the lochs of its tiny highlands,

And the nautilus moors his shell

With his sail and streamers furled.

Each floats ever and on

As the round green Earth is floating

Out through the sea of space

Bearing our mortal kind,

Parasites soon to be gone,

Whom others be sure are noting,

While to their astral race

We in our turn are blind. 146