Classic Poem

It is not easy, the harvest of the ocean,
Not like wheat to be reaped in a long hot day
With cider under the hedge, not like potatoes
To be dug for, leaning down to finger the clay,
Not like apples, or almonds, with ladders leaning
Against the fruit-filled boughs, not like milk and cream
Drumming into a pail at dawn and evening,
Not like watercress gathered in the current of a stream,—

No, for fishing a man must be strong-armed and strong-hearted,
Dawn and dark he must harness the wind, he must rein
The unbroken wind to his plow, and his furrow
Over his own head-may close rolling again.
Rain and sleet he must bear, blinded and rocking,
He must fight through long nights when the winds cut like flails,
Haul at the lines, and hold to the tiller,
And struggle, half-frozen, with storm-maddened sails.

It is not easy, the harvest of the ocean,
A hard life have its gleaners, and one often cut short,
But they reap without sowing, which is sweet to wild natures,
And it is as conquerors that they storm into port:
A hard life, but not dull like the life of the farmyard
(The rutted long struggle with the niggardly ground)
The sailors go out to the curve of the ocean—
And their field has no hedge, and their road has no bound!