THE TWO SHIPS
Of that celestial light. And closer come,
No flaw belittled, no neglect belied
That majesty of mien, but burnish’d shone
Her tapering spars, and glittering-bright her trucks.
Her hull, from cleaving stem to sheering stern;
In gracious lines all freshly-glancing ran,
And in her well-trimmed sails, her ropes all taut,
Her rigging well set-up and rattled-down,
Her order’d decks and steady steering, lay
Proof of a full and unscathed company.
How otherwise the other! Stoutly built,
With engines to give certainty and speed,
She sagg’d and labour’d in that halcyon calm,
Her steam deficient, all her pumps at work,
And hardly made her haven, staggering in
It seem’d at hazard, with that wavering wake.
Nearer, sea-crusted weary sides she show’d,
Dented and scored, and o’er the bow a sail
Suck’d in to stop some gash—and, even so,
Down by the head she was. Her davits yawn’d
Boatless; and of enfeebled strength and stores
Exhausted spoke the details of her gear,
Where all not rust was rotten. Beggarly,
Disabled, unseaworthy, in she crept
Like refuse in the other’s regal wake,
And, ’mid that home of pure perennial joy,
Stank of old sorrows.
68
