Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/At Sea
AT SEA
Tangled and torn, the white sea-laces
Broider the breast of the Indian Deep:
Lifted aloft the strong screw races
To slacken and strain in the waves which leap:
The great sails swell: the broad bows shiver
To green and silver the purple sea;
And, down from the sunset, a dancing river
Flows, broken gold, where our ship goes free.
Too free! too fast! With memories laden
I gaze to the northward where lies Japan:
Oh, fair and pleasant, and soft-voiced maiden!
You are there, too distant! O Yoshi San!
You are under those clouds by the storm-winds shaken,
A thousand ri, as the sea-gull flies,
As lost as if Death, not Time, had taken
My eyes away from your beautiful eyes.
Yet, if it were Death, of Friends, my Fairest!
He could not rend our spirits in twain:
They came too near to be less than nearest
In the world where true hearts mingle again.
But sad is the hour we sigh farewell in,
And, for me, whenever they name Japan,
All grace, all charm, of the land you dwell in
Is spoken in saying "O Yoshi San!"