| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Cape Helles | | By Morris Gilbert |
| | From “The Near East”
THIS water is all rich; and no great wave, | |
| Rushing, can ever sweep from the old ooze | |
| The witnesses of simple men who gave | |
Their lives here to the sea.
Our ship’s foot goes | |
| Warily now, for here she treads above | 5 |
| The globèd mortal homes of dreams all drowned. | |
| Sometimes, as if a man smiled at his love, | |
| A smile turns in the water. Round and round, | |
| Sometimes, a hundred cries go swimming, while | |
| Such common woes and hopes are ocean-freight, | 10 |
| That every eddy of the grey sea-mile | |
| Is strewn with ardors inarticulate | |
And homing memories.
Yet this must be: | |
| That men’s ghosts ever shame old pagan Earth, | |
| With human blood crimson grey Neptune’s sea, | 15 |
| Snap the Fates’ thread with high impetuous mirth, | |
| Cast in the dicing game mortality, | |
| Slip from the moorings of sweet flesh, and then | |
| Clean past the loom of the Ultimate Islands ride, | |
| To bring a vision down to the sea again | 20 |
| In ships, and keep the faith, and take the tide. | | | | |
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