III. THE LANDSMAN.

“It well may be just as you say,

Will Carver, that your tales are true;

Yet think what I must put away,

Will Carver, if sail with you.”

“If you should sail with me ( the wind

Is west, the tide's at full, my men! )

The things that you have left behind

Will be as nothing to you then.”

“Inland, it's June! And birds sing

Among the wooded hills, I know;

Between green fields, unhastening,

The Nashwaak's shadowed waters flow.

“What know you of such things as these

Who have the grey sea at your door,—

Whose path is as the strong winds please

Beyond this narrow strip of shore?”

“Your fields and woods! Now, answer me:

Up what green path have your feet run

So wide as mine, when the deep sea

Lies all-uncovered to the sun?

And down the hollows of what hills

Have you gone — half so glad of heart

As you shall be when our sail fills

And the great waves ride far apart?”

“O! half your life is good to live,

Will Carver; yet, if I should go,

What are the things that you can give

Lest I regret the things I know!

“Lest I desire the old life's way?

The noises of the crowded town?

The busy streets, where, night and day,

The traffickers go up and down?”

“What can I give for these? Alas,

That all unchanged your path must be!

Strange lights shall open as we pass

And alien wakes traverse the sea;

“Your ears shall hear ( across your sleep )

New hails, remote, disquieted,

For not a hand-breadth of the deep

But has to soothe some restless dead.

“These things shall be. And other things,

I think, not quite so sad as these!

— Know you the song the rigging sings

When up the opal-tinted seas

“The slow south-wind comes amorously?

The sudden gleam of some far sail

Going the same glad way as we,

Hastily, lest the good wind fail?

“The dreams that come ( so strange, so fair! )

When all your world lies well within

The moving magic circle where

The sea ends and the skies begin?”......

......" What port is that, so far astern,

Will Carver? And how many miles

Shall we have run ere the tide turn?

— And is it far to the farthest isles?”