Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/189

         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.