The Sirens.
From no grim ancient headland blossom-crowned,1
Seen ever through a fleeting foamy veil,2
No lineless sand that girds the bay around3
Where the wind’s threats and clamours pause and fail,4
But from the green trough of the surges, sound5
The Sirens’ voices in a landward hail,6
Far out where wind and wave play lustily,7
And draw the hearts of landsmen to the sea.8
Of old the Sirens promised peace and rest9
To men with many a weary league forlorn,10
And cot and vineyard on the land’s kind breast11
For heaving deck and sail storm-lashed and torn,12
For the black barren crag where sea-winds nest13
Fair slopes of joyous grass and fields of corn,14
Earth’s brides and roses in a sheltered vale15
For the cold weed and sea-nymphs lank and pale.16
But we whom careless fate in life has set17
Like ships becalmed beneath a windless sky,18
Who, wrapped in irksome ease, still chafe and fret19
While void of noble deeds the days go by,20
Who hate the listless hours and claim the debt21
Life owes to Youth while yet his blood is high—22
What promise wedded to what melodies23
Hear we to draw our hearts across the seas ?24
Songs that the shock of meeting waves repeat,25
Splash of the spray, hiss of the plunging prow,26
Roar of the trade winds going with steady feet,27
Glamour of tropic coasts and fields of snow,28
And of the line where sky and water meet29
Past which lies all the world to see and know—30
Through these with smile austere looks Danger’s face31
Charming our hearts to draw to her embrace.32
Lured by the chant, the ancient sailor found33
Death waiting on the green melodious shore,34
The sweet song swelled to triumph as he drowned,35
And the tides roll his bones for evermore.36
He knew not: but we know the voices sound37
That sing to us, beside Death’s very door.38
Yet while our blood is young, come Death or no,39
The Sirens call and call—and we must go.40