I left 'em all in couples akissing on the decks. I left the lovers loving and the parents signing checks.

In endless English comfort by county-folk ca

ressed,

I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!

That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift

again

Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.

They're just beyond the skyline, howe'er so far you cruise

In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching search-light-'twill show no haven's peace!

Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, graybearded seas!

Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's

unrest

But you aren't a knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest.

And when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,

On a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head

to gale,

Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,

You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver

spread;

You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head;

While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns

shine

Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine.

Hull down-hull down and under-she dwindles to a speck,

With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her

deck.

All's well-all's well aboard her-she's dropped

you far behind,

With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.

Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make ?

You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake?

Well, tinker up your engines-you know your business best

She's taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!

AN AMERICAN.

The American Spirit speaks:

If the Led Striker call it a strike,
Or the papers call it a war,
They know not much what I am like,
Nor what he is, my Avatar.

Through many roads, by me possessed,
He shambles forth in cosmic guise;
He is the Jester and the Jest,

And he the Text himself applies.

The Celt is in his heart and hand,
The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;
Where, cosmopolitanly planned,

He guards the Redskin's dry reserve.

His easy unswept hearth he lends
From Labrador to Guadeloupe;

Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,

He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.

Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown,
Or panic-blinded stabs and slays:
Blatant he bids the world bow down,

Or cringing begs a crumb of praise;

Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,
He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.
His hands are black with blood: his heart
Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.

But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humour saves him wholeThe cynic devil in his blood

That bids him mock his hurrying soul;

That bids him flout the Law he makes,
That bids him make the Law he flouts,

Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes

The drumming guns that have no doubts;

That checks him foolish hot and fond,
That chuckles through his deepest ire,

That gilds the slough of his despond

But dims the goal of his desire;