WHITE HORSES

With march and countermarchings

With weight of wheeling hostsStray mob or bands embattled

We ring the chosen coasts: And, careless of our clamour That bids the stranger fly, At peace within our pickets The wild white riders lie.

Trust ye the curdled hollows-
Trust ye the neighing wind-
Trust ye the moaning ground-swell-
Our herds are close behind!
To bray your foeman's armies—
To chill and snap his sword-
Trust ye the wild White Horses,
The Horses of the Lord!

THE SECOND VOYAGE

WE'VE sent our little Cupids all ashore

They were frightened, they were tired, they were

cold;

Our sails of silk and purple go to store,

And we've cut away our mast of beaten gold

(Foul weather!)

Oh 'tis hemp and singing pine for to stand against the

brine,

But Love he is the master as of old!

The sea has shorn our galleries away,
The salt has soiled our gilding past remede;
Our paint is flaked and blistered by the spray,
Our sides are half a fathom furred in weed
(Foul weather!)

And the doves of Venus fled and the petrels came

instead,

But Love he was our master at our need!

THE SECOND VOYAGE

'Was Youth would keep no vigil at the bow,
'Was Pleasure at the helm too drunk to steer-
We've shipped three able quartermasters now,
Men call them Custom, Reverence, and Fear
(Foul weather!)

They are old and scarred and plain, but we'll run no risk again

From any Port o' Paphos mutineer!

We seek no more the tempest for delight,

We skirt no more the indraught and the shoal—

We ask no more of any day or night

Than to come with least adventure to our goal

(Foul weather!)

What we find we needs must brook, but we do not go

to look,

Nor tempt the Lord our God that saved us whole!

Yet, caring so, not overly we care

To brace and trim for every foolish blast, If the squall be pleased to sweep us unaware, He may bellow off to leeward like the last

(Foul weather!)

We will blame it on the deep (for the watch must

have their sleep),

And Love can come and wake us when 'tis past.

THE SECOND VOYAGE

Oh launch them down with music from the beach, Oh warp them out with garlands from the quaysMost resolute-a damsel unto each

New prows that seek the old Hesperides!

(Foul weather!)

Though we know the voyage is vain, yet we see our path again

In the saffroned bridesails scenting all the seas!

(Foul weather!)

THE DYKES

We have no heart for the fishing, we have no hand

for the oar

All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us now

no more;

All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt

where we do not deny

There is no proof in the bread we eat or rest in the toil we ply.

Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea

gate, dyke, and groin

Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join.

They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died,

and their work stood fast.

We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past.