7. Lost Anchors

LIKE a dry fish flung inland far from shore,

There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned,

Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned

And out of mind a century before,

Where divers, on descending to explore

A legend that had lived its way around

The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found

Anchors, which had been seized and seen no more.

Improving a dry leisure to invest

Their misadventure with a manifest

Analogy that he may read who runs,

The sailor made it old as ocean grass—

Telling of much that once had come to pass

With him, whose mother should have had no sons.