Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
Cape HellesMorris Gilbert
T
Rushing, can ever sweep from the old ooze
The witnesses of simple men who gave
Their lives here to the sea.
Our ship’s foot goes
Warily now, for here she treads above
The globèd mortal homes of dreams all drowned.
Sometimes, as if a man smiled at his love,
A smile turns in the water. Round and round,
Sometimes, a hundred cries go swimming, while
Such common woes and hopes are ocean-freight,
That every eddy of the grey sea-mile
Is strewn with ardors inarticulate
And homing memories.
Yet this must be:
That men’s ghosts ever shame old pagan Earth,
With human blood crimson grey Neptune’s sea,
Snap the Fates’ thread with high impetuous mirth,
Cast in the dicing game mortality,
Slip from the moorings of sweet flesh, and then
Clean past the loom of the Ultimate Islands ride,
To bring a vision down to the sea again
In ships, and keep the faith, and take the tide.