And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair,

And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!"

Half-steam ahead by guess and lead, for the sun is mostly veiled

Through fog to fog,by luck and log,sail ye as Bering sailed; And if the light shall lift aright to give your landfall plain, North and by west, from Zapne Crest, ye raise the

Crosses Twain.

Fair marks are they to the inner bay, the reckless poacher knows

What time the scarred see-catchie lead their sleek

seraglios.

Ever they hear the floe-pack clear, and the blast of the old bull-whale,

And the deep seal-roar that beats off-shore above the loudest gale.

Ever they wait the winter's hate as the thundering boorga calls,

Where northward look they to St. George, and westward to St. Paul's.

Ever they greet the hunted fleet-lone keels off headlands drear—

When the sealing-schooners flit that way at hazard year by year.

Ever in Yokohama port men tell the tale anew

Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight,

When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light And the Stralsund fought the two.

THE DERELICT

And reports the derelict Mary Pollock still at sea.

SHIPPING NEWS.

I was the staunchest of our fleet
Till the sea rose beneath our feet
Unheralded, in hatred past all measure.
Into his pits he stamped my crew,
Buffeted, blinded, bound and threw,
Bidding me eyeless wait upon his pleasure.

Man made me, and my will

Is to my maker still,

Whom now the currents con, the rollers steer

Lifting forlorn to spy

Trailed smoke along the sky,

Falling afraid lest any keel come near!

Wrenched as the lips of thirst,

Wried, dried, and split and burst,

Bone-bleached my decks, wind-scoured to the graining;

And jarred at every roll

The

gear that was my soul

Answers the anguish of my beams' complaining.

For life that crammed me full,

Gangs of the prying gull

That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches!

For roar that dumbed the gale,

My hawse-pipes guttering wail,

Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted watches!

Blind in the hot blue ring.

Through all my points I swing— Swing and return to shift the sun anew. Blind in my well-known sky

I hear the stars go by,

Mocking the prow that cannot hold one true!

White on my wasted path

Wave after wave in wrath

Frets 'gainst his fellow, warring where to send me. Flung forward, heaved aside,

Witless and dazed I bide

The mercy of the comber that shall end me.

North where the bergs careen,

The spray of seas unseen

Smokes round my head and freezes in the falling;

South where the corals breed,

The footless, floating weed

Folds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawling.

I that was clean to run

My race against the sun

Strength on the deep, am bawd to all disaster

Whipped forth by night to meet

My sister's careless feet,

And with a kiss betray her to my master!

Man made me, and my will

Is to my maker still

To him and his, our peoples at their pier: Lifting in hope to spy

Trailed smoke along the sky,

Falling afraid lest any keel come near!

THE ANSWER

A ROSE, in tatters on the garden path,
Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath,
Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush
Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush.
And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun,
Had pity, whispering to that luckless one,
"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well—
What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell?”
And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour

A voice said, 'Father, wherefore falls the flower?
For lo, the very gossamers are still.'
And a voice answered, 'Son, by Allah's will!'"

Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward, Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord: "Sister, before We smote the dark in twain,

Ere yet the stars saw one another plain,

Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask." Whereat the withered flower, all content,

Died as they die whose days are innocent;

While he who questioned why the flower fell

Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell.