Page:The Man with the Hoe, Markham, 1900.djvu/75



The Wharf of Dreams

Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:

Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light

Flashes a signal fire across the night;

Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keep

Their way without a star upon the deep;

And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,

Come cries of incommunicable news,

While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap—

Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,

Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong, 47