ed her.
"And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white."

"Nay," said the scarlet visitor,
"Though I sink through the sea,
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.

"But never crashing iceberg
Nor honest shot of foe,
Nor hidden reef has sent me
The way that I must go.
My wounds that stain the waters,
My blood that is like flame,
Bear witness to a loathly deed,
A deed without a name.

"I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang--and then--
And then--the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!

"My wrongs cry out for vengeance,
The blow that sent me here
Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream
Has reached Jehovah's ear.
Not all the seven oceans
Shall wash away that stain;
Upon the brow that wears a crown
I am the brand of Cain."

When God's great voice assembles
The fleet on Judgment Day,
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise
In sea and strait and bay.
Though they have lain for ages
Beneath the changeless flood,
They shall be white as silver,
But one--shall be like blood.

FEATHERSTONE'S DOOM: ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER

Twist thou and twine! in light and gloom
A spell is on thy hand;
The wind shall be thy changeful loom,
Thy web the twisting sand.

Twine from this hour, in ceaseless toil,
On Blackrock's sullen shore:
Till cordage of the sand shall coil
Where crested surges roar.

'Tis for that hour, when from the wave
Near voices wildly cried;
When thy stern hand no succour gave,
The cable at thy side.

Twist thou and twine! In light and gloom
The spell is on thine hand;
The wind shall be thy changeful loom,
Thy web the shifting sand.

SEA-GHOSTS: MAY BYRON

O' stormy nights, be they summer or winter,
Hurricane nights like these,
When spar and topsail are rag and splinter
Hurled o'er the sluicing seas,

To the jagged edge where the cliffs lean over,
Climb as you best may climb;
Lie there and listen where mysteries hover,
Haunting the tides of Time.

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