Songs from Vagabondia

<h3><SPAN name="AT_SEA" name="AT_SEA"></SPAN>AT SEA.</h3> <p>As a brave man faces the foe, <br/>Alone against hundreds, and sees Death grin in his teeth, <br/>But, shutting his lips, fights on to the end <br/>Without speech, without hope, without flinching,&mdash; <br/>So, silently, grimly, the steamer <br/>Lurches ahead through the night. <br/> <br/>A beacon-light far off, <br/>Twinkling across the waves like a star! <br/>But no star in the dark overhead! <br/>The splash of waters at the prow, and the evil light <br/>Of the death-fires flitting like will-o'-the-wisps beneath! And beyond <br/>Silence and night! <br/> <br/>I sit by the taffrail, <br/>Alone in the dark and the blown cold mist and the spray, <br/>Feeling myself swept on irresistibly, <br/>Sunk in the night and the sea, and made one with their footfall-less onrush, <br/>Letting myself be borne like a spar adrift <br/>Helplessly into the night. <br/> <br/>Without fear, without wish, <br/>Insensate save of a dull, crushed ache in my heart, <br/>Careless whither the steamer is going, <br/>Conscious only as in a dream of the wet and the dark <br/>And of a form that looms and fades indistinctly <br/>Everywhere out of the night. <br/> <br/>O love, how came I here? <br/>Shall I wake at thy side and smile at my dream? <br/>The dream that grips me so hard that I cannot wake nor stir! <br/>O love! O my own love, found but to be lost! <br/>My soul sends over the waters a wild inarticulate cry, <br/>Like a gull's scream heard in the night. <br/> <br/>The mist creeps closer. The beacon <br/>Vanishes astern. The sea's monotonous noises <br/>Lapse through the drizzle with a listless, subsiding cadence. <br/>And thou, O love, and the sea throb on in my brain together, <br/>While the steamer plunges along, <br/>Butting its way through the night.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />