Classic Poem

His fathers sleep in steadfast graves
Under the unadventurous mould;
But him, who for the salt sea sold
His birthright, still the vagrant waves
In endless vagabondage hold.

Not his the kindly sleep of earth
Who ever scorned the soil in life:
Tied to no spot by bairns and wife,
Sea-called and chosen from his birth,
He keeps the way of salty strife:

Far from the quiet fields of home
Where all his folk clod-cumbered lie,
On tossing crests when winds are high
His spirit rides through crashing foam
And whistles to the whistling sky.