Mother Carey’s Chickens
When the drift spins white, and the winds are high,
And the black clouds race in the sullen sky,
The Mother Carey, down in the sea,
Startles her chickens up from her knee.
With shout and laughter she bids them fly.
“Oh, the white foam gleams, and the wave-heads sing,
So up my pretty ones, strong of wing.
There’s many a good ship out to-night,
Sheeted with spray and blind with fright:
So follow them close, till the thing is done,
And bring me the dead hearts one by one.”
For this is her way when the giant sea
Rages, stark mad, and the stunned ships flee;
She sends her chickens, strong of flight,
Out of the sea and into the night,
To guide dead mariners down to her knee.
They say that her song has a magic ring
To sailormen, weary of journeying;
That brave eyes close in a lotus sleep—
All’s well! and never a watch to keep;
And the Joy of Life seems a little thing
When they follow the flash of the dipping wing.
Their brisk sea voices will lift no more
When the anchor is catted for some strange shore.
Heart-ache is done and tears are past,
And the red weeds cling to the broken mast,
And never a lean back springs to the oar.
They say that these swift, brown birds, that flee
And skim in our wake, when the wind is free,
Are the souls of mariners drowned in the sea—
That they guide dead comrades down, far down,
To the swaying streets of a coral town,
Where the mother sits in her tide-spun gown.
