Works

Shipmate, leave the ghostly shadows,
Where thy boon companions throng!
We will put to sea together
Through the twilight with a song.

Leering closer, rank and girding,...

That painter has not with a careless smutch
Accomplished his despair?--one touch revealing
All he had put of life, thought, vigor, feeling,
Into the canvas that without that touch...

Here's to you, Arthur! You and I
Have seen a lot of stormy weather,
Since first we clinked cups on the sly
At school together.

The winds of fate have had their will...

Cool! cool! cool!
Cool and sweet
The feel of the moss at my feet!
And sweet and cool
The touch of the wind, of the wind!

Cool wind out of the blue,
At the touch of you...

Give me your last Aloha,
When I go out of sight,
Over the dark rim of the sea
Into the Polar night!

And all the Northland give you
Skoal for the voyage begun,...

For love of the roving foot
And joy of the roving eye,
God send you store of morrows fair
And a good rest by and by!

Hills where once my love and I
Let the hours go laughing by!
All your woods and dales are sad,--
You have lost your Oread.
Falling leaves! Silent woodlands!
Half your loveliness is fled....

The swarthy bee is a buccaneer,
A burly velveted rover,
Who loves the booming wind in his ear
As he sails the seas of clover.

A waif of the goblin pirate crew,
With not a soul to deplore him,...

Today, through your Easter market
In the lazy Southern sun,
I strolled with hands in pockets
Past the flower-stalls one by one.

Indolent, dreamy, ready
For anything to amuse,...

There's a schooner out from Kingsport,
Through the morning's dazzle-gleam,
Snoring down the Bay of Fundy
With a norther on her beam.

How the tough wind springs to wrestle,...

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
We who down the border
Rove from gloom to glee,--

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
There be no such gypsies...

"Cras ingens iterabimus aequor."

Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this old city by the sea
With news for me!

Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!...

"Lose and love" is love's first art;
So it was with thee and me,
For I first beheld thy heart
On the night I last saw thee.
Pine-woods and mysteries!
Sea-sands and sorrows!...

Dame of the night of hair
Like blue smoke blown!
World yet undreamed-of there
Lurks to be known.

Dame of the dizzy eyes,
Lure of dim quests!
World of what midnights lies...

I was born for deep-sea faring;
I was bred to put to sea;
Stories of my father's daring
Filled me at my mother's knee.

I was sired among the surges;
I was cubbed beside the foam;...

Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime
For a life that knows no fear!
Turn night-time into daytime
With the sunlight of good cheer!
For it's always fair weather
When good fellows get together,...

About the time of Michael's feast
And all his angels,
There comes a word to man and beast
By dark evangels.

Then hearing what the wild things say
To one another,...

Here's a health to thee, Roberts,
And here's a health to me;
And here's to all the pretty girls
From Denver to the sea!

Here's to mine and here's to thine!
Now's the time to clink it!...

As a brave man faces the foe,
Alone against hundreds, and sees Death grin in his teeth,
But, shutting his lips, fights on to the end
Without speech, without hope, without flinching,--...

There is no escape by the river,
There is no flight left by the fen;
We are compassed about by the shiver
Of the night of their marching men.
Give a cheer!
For our hearts shall not give way....