To break their long sleep, One hour each night The dead, drowned sailors Are given respite. But not before the last flesh Is torn from their skulls By the deep-sea shadows Of the high-air gulls. One hour each night They have power to rise And gaze through the caverns Of their once-warm eyes. Then they do all things That in life were sweet: They dance slow hornpipes With their fleshless feet -- Tap, tap; bone to board, Their joints creaking loud! One who died in his bed Dances in a shroud. Every sunken ship's deck Knows these phantom throngs: They swing on wet ratlines, Singing old songs. One hour each night And then back to sleep: Their eyes' black sockets Make the scared fish leap. Flesh at the hornpipes Is a merrier note Than bones at the hornpipes On a sunken boat. Every time I hear the wind Make a doleful roar I know dead sailors dance On the ocean floor. One hour each night, Leagues down the sea, Their clanking, phosphorescent bones Make high revelry. But not until all flesh is torn From their salted skulls By the deep-sea shadows Of the white, swift gulls. |