‘One can’t tell whether there won’t be a tide to catch, some beautiful morning.’
T. H. WHITE
Yes, for the young these expectations charm
There are sealed sailing-orders; but they dream
A cabined breath into the favouring breeze
Kisses a moveless hull alive, will bear
It on to some landfall, no matter where –
The Golden Gate or the Hesperides.
Anchored, they feel the ground-swell of an ocean
Stirring their topmasts with the old illusion
That a horizon can be reached. In pride
Unregimentable as a cross-sea
Lightly they float on pure expectancy.
Some morning now we sail upon the tide.
Wharves, cranes, the lighthouse in a sleep-haze glide
Past them, the landmark spires of home recede,
Glittering waves look like a diadem.
The winds are willing, and the deep is ours
Who chose the very time to weigh the bowers.
How could they know it was the tide caught them?
* * *
Older, they wake one dawn and are appalled,
Rusting in estuary or safely shoaled,
By the impression made on those deep waters.
What most sustained has left a residue
Of cartons, peelings, all such galley spew,
And great loves shrunk to half-submerged french letters.
Sometimes they doubt if ever they left this harbour.
Squalls, calms, the withering wake, frayed ropes and dapper
Refits have thinned back to a dream, dispersed
Like a Spice Island’s breath. Who largely tramped
The oceans, to a rotting hulk they’re cramped –
Nothing to show for this long toil but waste.
It will come soon – one more spring tide to lift
Us off; the lighthouse and the spire shall drift
Vaguely astern, while distant hammering dies on
The ear. Fortunate they who now can read
Their sailing orders as a firm God-speed,
This voyage reaches you beyond the horizon.