He sat upon the rolling deck
Half a world away from home,
And smoked a Capstan cigarette
And watched the blue waves tipped with foam.

He had a mermaid on his arm,
An anchor on his breast,
And tattooed on his back he had
A blue bird in a nest.

He sang one song and died — no more but that:
A single song and carelessly complete.
He would not bind and thresh his chance-grown wheat,
Nor bring his wild fruit to the common vat,
To store the acid rinsings, thin and flat,
Squeezed from the press or trodden under feet.
A few slow beads, blood-red and honey-sweet,
Oozed from the grape, which burst and spilled its fat.
But Time, who soonest drops the heaviest things
That weight his pack, will carry diamonds long.
So through the poets' orchestra, which weaves

He said he had been a soldier,
That his wife and children
Had died in Jamaica.
He had a beggar's wallet over his shoulders,
And a coat of shreds and patches.
And though his body was bent,
He was tall
And had the look of one
Used to have been upright.

I talked a while, and then
I gave him a piece of cold bacon

He rose up on his dying bed
and asked for fish.
His wife looked it up in her dream book
and played it.

He roamed half round the world of woe,
Where toil and labour never cease;
Then dropped one little span below
In search of peace.

And now to him mild beams and showers,
All that he needs to grace his tomb,
From loneliest regions at all hours,
Unsought for come.

He played by the river when he was young,
He raced with rabbits along the hills,
He fished for minnows, and climbed and swung,
And hooted back at the whippoorwills.
Strong and slender and tall he grew —
And then, one morning, the bugles blew.

Over the hills the summons came,
Over the river's shining rim.
He said that the bugles called his name,
He knew that his country needed him,
And he answered, " Coming! " and marched away
For many a night and many a day.

Perhaps when the marches were hot and long

He paused on the sill of a door ajar
That screened a lively liquor-bar,
For the name had reached him through the door
Of her he had married the week before.

"We called her the Hack of the Parade;
But she was discreet in the games she played;
If slightly worn, she's pretty yet,
And gossips, after all, forget.

"And he knows nothing of her past;
I am glad the girl's in luck at last;
Such ones, though stale to native eyes,
Newcomers snatch at as a prize."

"Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent

The waning days now waft us on
From world-enlight'ning summer gone,
And shrill cold winds, above the shrouds
Of shaken trees, drive darksome clouds
O'er gloomy grass within the glades,
Where glowing lights and quiv'ring shades
Were lately lying, in the heat
Of longer days, beneath our feet.

The bending stream that bubbled by
Its bank among the stones half dry,
When in the heat of high-sunn'd noon
Our hay was rustling grey in June,
With yellow waves is rolling wide
And wild along the wet rock's side;

He must not laugh at his own wheeze:
A snuff box has no right to sneeze.

HE MAY BE six kinds of a liar,
He may be ten kinds of a fool,
He may be a wicked highflyer
Beyond any reason or rule;

There may be a shadow above him
Of ruin and woes to impend,
And I may not respect, but I love him,
Because — well, because he's my friend.

I know he has faults by the billion,
But his faults are a portion of him;
I know that his record's vermilion,