Classic Poem

The bright new grass pricks through the " sugar snow, "
The budded elm-tops wrestle to and fro,
And on the washed blue sky thin clouds a-fraying
Southeastward blow.

The life of spring that starts in blade and bud,
The strong unrest that sweeps yon flying scud,
With salt, ancestral, Viking hungers tingle
And tease my blood.

Now is the time for putting off from shore,
For smiting ice-cold waves with ashen oar,
Seeking the Southlands, less for gold and conflict
Than life the more.

But earth is tamed; — where crept the Viking's keel,
Now flies a caravansary of steel,
And war's own weapons against war are pointed
By public weal.

And we, with all our Berserk heritage
Of love for alien seas and battle-rage,
Find round ourselves, born for an age of iron,
This paper age.

Yet blithe to-day beckons the twinkling sea,
To shores unknown and life at large and free; —
'T is March, the winds blow seaward, and my being
Would with them flee!