Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, COMPLIMENT TO MARINERS, by GEORGE H. DILLON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COMPLIMENT TO MARINERS, by                    
First Line: Man's earthliness which saints deplore
Last Line: Insinuate the sterile sand.


Man's earthliness which saints deplore
Suggests that his most potent worth
Is surely to refresh the store
Of diligent dead, compact with earth.

In their dull drudgery he shall
Enlist, save that he makes his tomb
The sea where pallid fishes fall
Like slow snow down the tall green gloom.

Such proud exemption justly goes
Never to them who vainly sing
In strenuous awe before a rose,
Or tremble in the furious spring.

Wherefore, dark mariners, you earn
A certain envy that you set
Wide banners on the wind, and spurn
The crowded island, and forget

You ever trod its greenest shore;
But most, that finally you stand
In cold unlaboring coral or
Insinuate the sterile sand.





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