Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MISSING, by CICELY FOX SMITH Poet's Biography First Line: She was spoken off saint vincent, outward bound Last Line: Things lovely and beloved, that are no more. . . . Subject(s): Ships & Shipping | ||||||||
SHE was spoken off Saint Vincent, outward bound . . . Some lumber-laden barque from Puget Sound, Heaving her sodden deck-load through the foam, Weary of sea-ways, climbing the hill for home . . . Some nine-knot tramp from Melbourne or Bombay, Wallowing deep-freighted on her homeward way, Her grimy decks awash, her blistered funnel Leprous with salt, sea-stained from keel to gunwale, Rust-streaked, and battered with the Cape Horn gales, Sighted at grey of dawn her shining sails . . . White as a woman's breasts they gleamed afar, -- Her gilded main-truck flashing like a star, -- And the first shafts of sunrise turned to gold Her sleek side, heaving upward as she rolled. . . . So passed she by -- and those who watched her go Thought of that road they had good cause to know, Thought how, when they were sheltered dry and warm, She would go plunging through some night of storm, All hands aloft, reefing the steel-hard sails, Cursing . . . with frozen hands and bleeding nails . . . Her yards sheeted with ice . . . her leaning deck A seething flood men toiled in to the neck . . . Then thought of winking glasses, warmth and noise -- Good pay to burn -- and sordid seaport joys -- Saying: "Who'd change with them chaps now?" -- and yet Still felt a strange half-envy, half-regret, Such as men may who, ease and wealth attained, And their full measure of good fortune gained, From the safe harbour of their middle years Look back on youth, its burning hopes and fears, Its unattempted capes and unsailed sea, Landfalls unguessed, and all things yet to be, Fond dreams, fantastic loves, and dark despair, -- Know it for ever fled -- know it was fair . . . So passed she by -- her tall masts swaying, singing, Sailors (mere specks) on dizzy footropes swinging, Whence, looking down, they saw beneath them spread All her slim length from stern to foc's'le head, The cleft wave streaming from her wedge of bow, Where the carved warrior with his casqued brow Leaned always out over the sea's unrest, With arms laid crosswise on his mailed breast, And eyes that, all unseeing, seemed to gaze Out to the ultimate end of all men's ways . . . Passed . . . till hull down on the horizon's rim Her lonely beauty lessened and grew dim . . . Passed . . . like a song unfinished, a broken rhyme . . . And the sea's silence took her for all time. She will not come . . . oh, never, never more Shall she draw near to any earthly shore; In storm or calm -- in foul weather or fine -- Fast-hurrying wrack or watery pale sunshine -- Frost when the jackstay burns the naked hand -- Odours of forests blowing off the land -- Chill driving mist, or roar of tropic rain -- Dawn, noontide, sunset, dark . . . never again! No more at sunrise, all the winds at rest, The sea rose-dappled like a pigeon's breast, Shall her black tug -- a dwarf leading a queen -- Bring her the lighthouse-guarded strait between . . . No more, when folk ashore begin to stir, And wood-smoke hangs on the sharp morning air, Her sailormen, tramping the capstan round, Shall wake the sleeping anchorage with sound -- Lifting some wild sea shanty of old time, Some ancient strain wedded to rough old rhyme -- "Lowlands away" or "Rio Grande" -- unheard Each trivial phrase, each vile and worthless word, Only the strange wild cadences remaining, Full of the sea's voice and the wind's complaining, The sad old wistful melody that seems The stuff of old men's memories, young men's dreams . . . No more for her along the anchored tiers Shall all the shipping ripple into cheers Of welcome or farewell . . . no more again On any tide her restless cables strain . . . Nor any landlocked roadstead more behold Her mirrored pride . . . no harbour see her fold, After long wanderings come at last to shore, Her weary wings at sunset any more . . . Never again to any foul lagoon Or fetid river in the reek of noon, Or any lone teredo-fretted quay Where pine-clothed ranges echo all the day The crash of falling forests . . . bustling hong, Or small white Spanish town its palms among . . Or where the gleaming Andes hold on high Their spears in challenge to the sunset sky . . . To any port of all the ports there be Shall she come with her beauty from the sea. Aye, all that grace and beauty, strength and speed All that she was, are now no more indeed -- Ropes, hard and hairy as a seaman's hand -- Planking, scoured white as bone with stone and sand -- Fiferails with staunch belaying-pins arow -- And racks of capstan-bars -- and sails like snow -- And standing rigging gleaming black and white -- Clean smells of tar and paint -- and brasses bright As gold in the sun -- and darkly shining teak . . . That little ordered world, austere and bleak As some bare chapel of a monkish creed That asks not pomp nor pride for its soul's need . . . No more, that strength, that swiftness and that grace, Than one blown foam-flake on the ocean's face -- No more than one of all the million bubbles Beneath some proud ship's forefoot, when she troubles The tumbled whites and blues of tropic seas A little, and is gone -- no more than these, Less than the least small shell the ocean sweeps Through winds and waves and unimagined deeps, Far from the warmth of blue West Indian seas, And gaudy parrots screaming through the trees, Hot tropic smells, and fireflies, and the song Of Trade winds in the palm-trees all day long, To the cool greys and blues of temperate skies, Cold tide-left pools, and the strange seabirds' cries, And the pink sea-thrift on the headlands blooming, And in the hollow caves the Atlantic booming. Where rests she now? . . . On what Antarctic shore Where nothing grows but lichens, grey and hoar As the pale lips of death . . . and nothing moves On the long beaches, in the deep sea-coves, But uncouth sea-beasts in their secret, strange Matings and breedings . . . nothing seems to change Year by slow year . . . and the fog comes, and the floe, And the sea thunders, and the great winds blow . . . And on still wings great birds go sailing by, Seeking, with slantwise head and watchful eye, Scraps for their naked nestlings . . . and the time Comes, and the time goes, and the ocean slime Coats her with foulness, and the seaweeds green Clothe her, whom once men tended like a queen . . . Let be! . . . She is one with all things that have been -- Embers of longing -- ashes of desire -- And hope grown cold -- and passion quenched like fire -- Friendship that death or years or the rough ways Of chance have sundered . . . all things meet for praise, Lost yet remembered, that were ours of yore -- Things lovely and beloved, that are no more. . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LIVE IT THROUGH by DAVID IGNATOW THE SHIP POUNDING by DONALD HALL ULTRAISTA ONEIRIC by ANSELM HOLLO THE NORTH SHIP by PHILIP LARKIN GOOD SHIPS by JOHN CROWE RANSOM A CHANNEL RHYME by CICELY FOX SMITH |
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