REUBEN
Voiced as it were of that smooth basking Blue
Beneath, the heart inveterately wild:—
Or else compute, of every passing ship,
Curtseying schooner, seated red-wing’d barge,
Or hurried steamer busily riving up
The unresisting gloss, their several speed,
Tonnage and cargo, whence and whither bound,
But never grudge the roving of their keels:
At night-fall, by the drift-oak’s various flame,
To pore upon old work-plans, books and charts,
With notes in labour’d writing; to survey
Old calculations, once work’d out, or go
Securely back in thought to old chill hours
Ere dawn . . . once more the breast-plate heavy hangs,
The caging helmet drops . . . the difficult breath
Buzzes . . . now, slowly over the boat-side
Heav’'d is the weighty body, and grows light;
While, flash’d to fire on either hand, the Dark
Pulses with radiance! till the far-off dawn,
Flushing yon upper world to life, pales this,
And weirdly thro’ the cold green glimmer move
Shadowy forms deep-dwelling. Ay, but cleave
With steady axe this ocean-thicket, ’mid
Whose moving tangle, What, unmoving looms,
What gleams? Kind Heaven, the pity! Where between
The drown’d ship’s ribs, ’mid fecund ooze and growth
That have no sense and yet how thick may thrive!
Mothers’ sons, bare boned, lie in cabins cold
17
