Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Farewell

Witter Bynner, trans.

WHEN in a plunge of water the great ship

Had sunk to the sea’s depth,

Its blind body dragging after it

Halyards and dripping masts,

When toward the four quarters of the night

Its boats had all perished,

Each beyond sight of the others,

Each with a high wave

Covering its final cries,

When the furious water had wiped

From its surface all signs,

There was still in the sea

A man alive and swimming.

He knew that the land was far off

And that before he could feel, with a cry of joy,

Becoming real to the reach of his feet

The shore of the tide of wreckage,

There would have to be day after day,

Turn after turn, exhaustion and sleeping and eating.

He acknowledged his appointed end,

But he thought himself strong and he wished

To use calmly the moments of this strength,

To use for slow and holy profit

The last warmth of his body,

The last illumination of his mind.

He let himself be borne by the fury of the water,

Which heaved him high on the edge of its surge,

Then plunged him dizzily

To the foot of its deep and moving walls.

Huge waves came,

Charging him like rams,

Tossing his body

On their lowered horns.

Dykes burst before him,

Mountains shattered over him,

Hail beat across him,

Tigers played with his head.

The water enwound him,

Trying to dissolve him,

And for an eternity

The vast liquid tumult

Was at his very core.

Then for an instant about him

Calm came,

And the sea took respite,

And there was the seething of broken foam,

And his senses found the air again like another world.

So it went until dawn.

And to live longer he ceased swimming,

Rather with his limbs forcing

The water to uphold him.

So it was until dawn,

And then the cold sheathed him;

And only then fell

The blind hope from his body—

That proud thing which gives to men

The custom of their victories

And the subjection of the earth;

Only then closed in on him

The awful certainty.

There was at the heart of this man

A life unknown to himself,

A life simple and still full

Of child-like faith,

Which never would have believed

That for its most favored guest,

Its most loving son,

Nature can be at times

An iron stranger, deaf

And absolute and pitiless.

And suddenly into the heart of this man

Came the shock and the wound of exile.

The sea, its sound, its motion,

Its power, its volume,

Overwhelmed him with horror.

He hunted out of his head the noise of the water

And he closed his eyes to escape it far away….

He saw a town

Touched softly by the sun.

Fine new shoes

Went brightly creaking

Over the clean pavements.

Along the row of shops,

Behind the shutters,

All the clocks

Could be heard

Striking noon.

And then by the glimmer of a night-lamp,

He saw a closed room

Where a family lay asleep.

He heard the sound of their breathing,

The crossing and confusing of rhythms.

He leaned over the beds,

Heavy and humid with sleep.

In one lay two children together;

Their bodies were uncovered,

And huddled in a hollow

Like kittens.

He saw again a young girl

Watering flowers in a garden.

One of her hands caught up her dress,

The other was balancing as far as she could reach

The heavy watering-can,

To distribute a curving shower

Without wetting the tips of her shoes held tight together.

The little clustering leaves

Whispered content;

And even their wet fragrance came to him,

And the very sound on the path

Of footsteps crunching the pebbles.

He saw also streets cluttered with chairs,

Where one sits to drink and to watch the crowd.

And he saw soldiers gambling and wrestling

In the barracks-yard at dusk.

He saw deep lanes, he saw wheat-fields,

He saw also the straight roads

Where you say good-day to the people you pass.

And last he saw again the great realm

Where thoughts touch and exchange,

Where all is intimately blent from all the earth.

He saw again the land of lands

Where all prolongs itself in one embrace.

It was then he wished to utter words,

To give thanks for his whole heritage.

And he wished to speak them aloud,

In order that he might hear with his ears

Once more the genius of words,

The sound of a voice.

And so he spoke as if he were praying—

He pronounced, in the middle of the sea,

The words that serve for love

And for praise.

He sought them all out and repeated them,

As one dying of thirst sucks at the juice of a fruit.

And when there were no more of them in his head

He must sing

To satiate his farewell,

Sing without words….

He must sing:

It was the loveliest song—

Of the pang of love and sadness;

It was the most poignant song of man

That a man ever had sung.

And though it routed in his head

The tenacious voices of the sea,

Though it was more august in his head

Than great organs,

No one here heard it.

And no one here can be surprised

By suddenly recalling it,

By humming it to himself,

Believing it sprung from his memory;

It was dissolved in the wind

Like snow in a stream….

His teeth were chattering as he sang it

And water burned his eyes;

But it was not the water of the sea.