Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/96

74 And jarred at every roll

The gear that was my soul

Answers the anguish of my beams' complaining.

For life that crammed me full,

Gangs of the prying gull

That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches!

For roar that dumbed the gale,

My hawse-pipes guttering wail,

Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted watches!

Blind in the hot blue ring

Through all my points I swing—

Swing and return to shift the sun anew.

Blind in my well-known sky

I hear the stars go by,

Mocking the prow that cannot hold one true!

White on my wasted path

Wave after wave in wrath

Frets 'gainst his fellow, warring where to send me.

Flung forward, heaved aside,

Witless and dazed I bide

The mercy of the comber that shall end me.