IF I'd got to choose alone One of all the freights I've known -- All my cargoes live and dead, Bacon pigs and pigs of lead, Cattle, copra, rice and rails, Pilgrims, coolies, nitrates, nails, Lima beans and China tea -- What do you think my pick would be? If I'd got to name the best -- Take just one and leave the rest Out of all the ports I've known -- Coral beaches white as bone, All the hot lands and the cold, Nights of stars and moons like gold, Tropic smells and Spanish wine, Whispering palm and singing pine, All the isles of all the sea -- Where do you think I'd want to be? Loading lumber long ago In a ship I used to know, With the bow-ports open wide In her stained and rusted side, And the saws a-screaming shrill At the Steveston lumber-mill; Where the Fraser floods and flows Green and cold with melting snows, And the tow-boats' wailing din, As the booms come crawling in, Fills the echoing creeks with sound, And there's sawdust all around, Deep and soft like drifted snow; Nowhere much a man can go, Nothing much to see or do, Mouldiest burg you ever knew. . . . But I'd give the years between -- All I've done and all I've seen, All the fooling and the fun, All the chances lost and won, All the good times and the bad, All the memories sweet and sad, Far and near, by shore and sea, I would give them all to be Loading lumber years ago With the lads I used to know -- Loading lumber all day long Stacks of scented deals among -- Loading lumber at the mill Till the screaming saws were still, And the rose-red sunset died From the mountains and the tide, And the night brought out its stars, And the wind's song in the spars Of that ship I used to know -- Loading lumber, long ago. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOCKED OUT; AS TOLD TO A CHILD by ROBERT FROST SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: AMOS SIBLEY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE GREAT RACE PASSES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS A HYMN OF HATE by DOROTHY PARKER ABU SALAMMAMM - A SONG OF EMPIRE by EZRA POUND HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 2 by EZRA POUND |