And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love;

But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee;

Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.

Sarojini Naidu

A VAGABOND SONG

There is something in the autumn that is native to my bloodTouch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry

Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gipsy blood astir;

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me;
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river
There's the life for a man like me,
There's the life forever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-
gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow

rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's

over.

- John Masefield

THE GOLDEN CITY OF ST. MARY

Out beyond the sunset, could I but find the way,
Is a sleepy blue laguna which widens to a bay,
And there's the Blessed City- so the sailors say
The Golden City of St. Mary.

It's built of fair marble-white-without a stain,
And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane
The bells chime faintly, like a soft, warm rain,
In the Golden City of St. Mary.

Among the green palm-trees where the fire-flies shine,
Are the white tavern tables where the gallants dine,
Singing slow Spanish songs like old mulled wine,
In the Golden City of St. Mary.

Oh I'll be shipping sunset-wards and westward-ho

Through the green toppling combers a-shattering into snow,

Till I come to quiet moorings and a watch below,

In the Golden City of St. Mary.

- John Masefield

SPANISH WATERS

Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are ringing in my ears, Like a slow sweet piece of music from the grey forgotten

years;

Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bringing weary thoughts

to me'

Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be.

There's a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and it never stops to

roar,

And it's there we came to anchor, and it's there we went

ashore,

Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags of rotting trees, Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up by the seas.

We anchored at Los Muertos when the dipping sun was red,

We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of Nigger Head; And before the mist was on the Cay, before the day was done,

We were all ashore on Muertos with the gold that we had

won.

We bore it through the marshes in a half-score battered

chests,

Sinking, in the sucking quagmires, to the sunburn on our breasts,

Heaving over tree-trunks, gasping, damning at the flies and heat,

Longing for a long drink, out of silver, in the ship's cool lazareet.