Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/440

VARIOUS POEMS And to hide the ocean wide,

And to wrap us in a pall!

Beneath its folds we past:

Hidden were shroud and mast,

And faces, in near places

Side by side.

Sudden there also fell

A summons like a knell:

Every ear the words could hear,—

Whence spoken, who could tell?

Gods, what a dismal sound!

A stranger, and in danger,

Sailing near.

From the Mersey, seven days out;

Fore and aft, our trusty craft

Carries a thousand souls, about."

Westward bound, if so they will;

Bodies rather, I would gather!"

Loud he laughed.

And for what this idle mood?

Words like these, on midnight seas,

Bode no friend nor fortune good!"

But whence I lastly came,

At leisure, for my pleasure,

Ask the breeze.

Bear a message of this sort:

Say, I haste unto the West,

A sharer of their sport. 410