ne?
Oh, for the ills half-understood,
The dim dead woe
Long ago
Befallen this bitter coast of France!
Well, poor sailors took their chance;
I take mine.

2.

A ruddy shaft our fire must shoot
O'er the sea;
Do sailors eye the casement--mute
Drenched and stark,
From their bark--
And envy, gnash their teeth for hate
O' the warm safe house and happy freight
--Thee and me?

3.

God help you, sailors, at your need!
Spare the curse!
For some ships, safe in port indeed,
Rot and rust,
Run to dust,
All through worms i' the wood, which crept,
Gnawed our hearts out while we slept:
That is worse.

4.

Who lived here before us two?
Old-world pairs.
Did a woman ever--would I knew!--
Watch the man
With whom began
Love's voyage full-sail,--(now, gnash your teeth!)
When planks start, open hell beneath
Unawares?

III. In the Doorway.

1.

The swallow has set her six young on the rail,
And looks seaward:
The water's in stripes like a snake, olive-pale
To the leeward,--
On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind.
"Good fortune departs, and disaster's behind",--
Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail!

--
St. 1. Note the truth of color in vv. 3-5.

2.

Our fig-tree, that leaned for the saltness, has furled
Her five fingers,
Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the world
Where there lingers
No glint of the gold, Summer sent for her sake:
How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake!
My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled.

--
St. 2. her five fingers: referring to the shape of the fig-leaf.

3.

Yet here are we two; we have love, house enough,
With the field there,
This house of four rooms, that field red and rough,
Though it yield there,
For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent;
If a magpie alight now, it seems an event;
And they both will be gone at November's rebuff.

--
St. 3. a bent: a bit of coarse grass; A.-S. `beonet', an adduced form;
Ger. `binse'.

4.

But why must cold spread? but wherefore bring change
To the spirit,
God meant should ma