THE CARIB SEA
The dun Sargasso weed
Slips from before our prow,
And its sight makes strong our will,
As of old the Genoese's,
When he stood in his hour of need
On the Santa Maria's bow.
Ay, and the winds at play
Toy with these peopled islands,
Each of itself as well
Naught but a brave New World,
Where the crab and sea-slug stay
In the lochs of its tiny highlands,
And the nautilus moors his shell
With his sail and streamers furled.
Each floats ever and on
As the round green Earth is floating
Out through the sea of space
Bearing our mortal kind,
Parasites soon to be gone,
Whom others be sure are noting,
While to their astral race
We in our turn are blind.
CASTLE ISLAND LIGHT
I
Between the outer Keys,
Where the drear Bahamas be,
Through a crooked pass the vessels sail
To reach the Carib Sea.
'T is the Windward Passage, long and dread,
From bleak San Salvador;
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