Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/357

SARGASSO WEED And between your ship and the shore and sky

The frigate-birds like fates appear,

The flapping pelican feeds about,

The tufted cardinals sing and fly.

So fair the shore, one has no fear;

And the sailors, gathered forward, shout

With strange glad voices each to each,—

Though well the harbor's depth they know

And the craven shark that lurks below,—

Until we stand upon the beach,

Until that wonderland we reach!"

—So green, so fair, the island lies,

As if 't were adrift from Paradise.

SARGASSO WEED

from the seething Stream

To the steadfast trade-wind's courses,

Over the bright vast swirl

Of a tide from evil free,—

Where the ship has a level beam,

And the storm has spent his forces,

And the sky is a hollow pearl

Curved over a sapphire sea.

Here it floats as of old,

Beaded with gold and amber,

Sea-frond buoyed with fruit,

Sere as the yellow oak,

Long since carven and scrolled,

Of some blue-ceiled Gothic chamber

Used to the viol and lute

And the ancient belfry's stroke.

Eddying far and still

In the drift that never ceases, 327