书城公版New Poems
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第45章 MAN SAILS THE DEEP AWHILE

MAN sails the deep awhile;

Loud runs the roaring tide;

The seas are wild and wide;

O'er many a salt, o'er many a desert mile, The unchained breakers ride, The quivering stars beguile.

Hope bears the sole command;

Hope, with unshaken eyes, Sees flaw and storm arise;Hope, the good steersman, with unwearying hand, Steers, under changing skies, Unchanged toward the land.

O wind that bravely blows!

O hope that sails with all Where stars and voices call!

O ship undaunted that forever goes Where God, her admiral, His battle signal shows!

What though the seas and wind Far on the deep should whelm Colours and sails and helm?

There, too, you touch that port that you designed -There, in the mid-seas' realm, Shall you that haven find.

Well hast thou sailed: now die, To die is not to sleep.

Still your true course you keep, O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky;And fifty fathom deep Your colours still shall fly.

THE COCK'S CLEAR VOICE INTO THE CLEARER AIRTHE cock's clear voice into the clearer air Where westward far I roam, Mounts with a thrill of hope, Falls with a sigh of home.

A rural sentry, he from farm and field The coming morn descries, And, mankind's bugler, wakes The camp of enterprise.

He sings the morn upon the westward hills Strange and remote and wild;He sings it in the land Where once I was a child.

He brings to me dear voices of the past, The old land and the years:

My father calls for me, My weeping spirit hears.

Fife, fife, into the golden air, O bird, And sing the morning in;For the old days are past And new days begin.