A Captain
A captain with his back to the broad sea,
Safe at last, and native, he stared at his country
Shimmering dead with light, and alone
His body dark—he only alive.
His belief in each long road there
Was his veins' blood and his strong heart
That shook him for this homecoming.
He had seen wrecks, and with icy face
The drowned, his children, scatter,
And the four winds rush in : this his reward
For his ambition deep towards sunk hulks,
His treasure standing in the sky.
Then chasing the noble birds his almost sightless eyes
Saw in their own dusk :—he saw his action's end.
It was here he hoped to find the living
As though each salt mouth were become a child
And his escape not miraculous.
Ambition still : even grief, even the rock
Of his first foothold ambition's food
While hope lasted. Then the bright light,
The guilt and tears of his heart waking
To be alive, and this earth dead.
A captain, he turns back to the sea
Where fish eat flesh.
He never cried at sea ; a long life
Unrolls as he ventures down ; in minute eye
He sees afar his marriage of sea and land
And homecoming to wished-for progeny.
Page(s) 2 (given as p.10)
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