Classic Poem

Apollo.

" And why are you cast down, sailor?
And why are you cast down?
With lapfuls of the guineas light
Come you not back to town?

Your feet that must have run in air
Aloft the slippy mast
Are they not glad to land, my lad,
On steady ground at last? "

Up from his brown rope-harden'd hands
A heavy chin he raised,
And sidelong through the harbour bluffs
Looked out like man amazed.

Seaman.

If you had cruised as I have cruised
Abroad for many a year,
Your blood like mine it would have struck
At the strange news I hear.

The Moon went riding high last night
And the dance along the quays,
But I could not find it in my heart
To care for shows like these;

While still I felt the rollers' lift
Bear on through the dark land,
And little houses here still rock
And sway — they would not stand —

I heard them calling in the streets
That the ship I serve upon —
The great ship Immortality —
Was gone down, like the sun. . . .