Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/146

 Empty and lit with a low nocturnal glimmer;

How in the strong, deep-plunging, transatlantic

Emigrant ship we sang our songs in chorus.

Piping, the gull flew by, the roaring billows

Jammed and resounded round the mighty vessel;

Infinite uproar, endless contradiction;

Yet over all our chorus rose, reminding

Wanderers here at sea of unforgotten

Homes and the undying, old, memorial loves.

Here in the strong, deep-plunging transatlantic

Emigrant ship the waves arose gigantic;

Piping the gull flew by, the roaring billows

Rose and appeared before the eye like pillows.

Piping the gull flew by, the roaring waves

Rose and appeared from subter-ocean caves,

And as across the smoothing sea we roam,

Still and anon we sang our songs of home.

Brown in his haste demanded this from me;

I in my leisure made the present verse. [ 121 ]