Page:Main Street and other poems, Kilmer, 1917.djvu/82

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MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS


THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED (continued)

And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.


The grim Titanic greeted her
"And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white."


"Nay," said the scarlet visitor,
"Though I sink through the sea,
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.



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