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Theodore Goodridge Roberts

Theodore Goodridge Roberts

The Forsaken Mistress

 
 
The Sea, my mistress, called to me out of the night,
When the streets of the town were hard and the lips of the tide were white,
And life was weary of waiting and dreams were as driven spray:
I rose and went to her arms before the lift of day.
 
Queen Sea, how fare your lovers?- Hood and Nelson and Drake;
Olaf and Cook and Hudson; Colombo, Rodney and Blake;
And Conrad who knew you fair and false? What is one lover more
To the love that counts its cheated dead ten thousand score!
 
The Sea, my mistress, called to me out of the night,
When the streets of the town were friendly and the windows all alight,
And life was glad of waiting, and fear and doubt were gone:
But I went to the arms of a kinder love before the lift of dawn!

#CanadianWriters

Autres oeuvres par Theodore Goodridge Roberts...
Christmas in Alurio

Pipe, bird, in the tamarind tree. Pipe, wind, on the azure sea. Here is the season of Peace on Ea… Pipe merrily. Roar, surf, on the outer reef.
Squaring the Yards

Drag the yards ‘round, lads, with… Lug the beggars ‘round. Mark the heads’ill pull, lads! S… We’re runnin’ for the little port… Tail along the brace, lads. Yo-h…
The Dying Pirate’s Prayer

Out from the rottin’ barnacles and… Out from the rusty ringbolts adown… Out from the roadstead green and t… Let me go! - it’s all I ask of Yo… Out and away, out and through
Christmas on Big Rattle

Archer sat by the rude hearth of his Big Rattle camp, brooding in a sort of tired contentment over the spitting fagots of var and glowing coals of birch. It was Christmas Eve. He had be...
Pernambuco in May

Not a leaf stirs in the rubbery lo… The Skipper’s shirt is wilted and… Whistle a breeze! Brown girls move along on slithery… Selling sticky sweets;
The Mad Sailor

Mad, they call me. Mad Dick Chan… Struck so, folk say, by the crashi… That night I was hove ashore in H… Along wid the timbers an’ spars of… Daft, they call me. Daft Dick Ch…
The Wreckers’ Prayer

Give us a wrack or two, Good Lard… For winter in Tops’il Tickle bes… Wid grey frost creepin’ like morta… And perishin’ lack of bread in the… A grand, rich wrack, us do humbly…
A Ballad of the Floe

The noddy lay sick-a-bed; The bread was low in the bin; The dogs howled all night long And the ice-pans drifted in. The white fog heaved with the soun…
In Neptune’s City

Off Vincent, eighty fathoms deep, With roofs of coral and pale shell… Wherein sleep the weary sailors, w… The Weavers of the deepest spell. Fair sisters, you have lured him f…
From Carlisle Bay

Skipper’s watch and mate’s watch: Day and night and day We’ve reefed and squared and steer… All up from Carlisle Bay, With humming trades above us
The Lover

Never had inland garden seemed So still, so drugged with dew; Never had green trees sung so swee… Beneath the empty blue. “As when he came, so gay, so sad,
The Last Billet

Some day I’ll come to that still… And bid the old man smooth my bed. No hurry of departure then, No waking when the dawn is red. The same kind trees will sing to m…
THE FIFES

THUMPS the big drum, “Come!” And thin and bitter-sweet the fife… “Come up and serve your country in… ”Come up and serve your King, in…
The Lost Shipmate

SOMEWHERE he failed me, somewh… Youth, in his ignorant faith and h… The tides go out; the tides come f… Still the old years die and the ne… But youth?–
Sailing North Off Pernambuco

North! We are sailing North, The song at the windlass is done. The slim, still palms, astern, Are black ‘gainst the orange sun. North! She is heading North,



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