Classic Poem

YEA , we have toiled all night. All night
We kept the boats, we cast the nets.
Nothing avails: the tides withhold,
The Sea hears not, and God forgets.

Long ere the sunset, we took leave
Of them at home whom want doth keep;
Now bitterness be all their bread
And tears their drink, and death their sleep!

The gaunt moon stayed to look on us
And marvel we abode so still,
Again we cast, again we drew
The nets that nought but hope did fill.

And while the grasp of near Despair
Did threaten nearer with the day,
Leagues out, the bounteous silver-sides
Leaped through the sheltering waves, at play!

So, stricken with the cold that smites
Death to a dying heart at morn,
We waited, thralls to hunger, such
As the strong stars may laugh to scorn.

And while we strove, leagues out, afar,
Returning tides,—with mighty hands
Full of the silver!—passed us by
To cast it upon alien lands.

Against the surge of hope we stood
And the waves laughed with victory;
Yet at our heart-strings, with the nets,
Tugged the false promise of the Sea.

So all the night-time we kept watch;
And when the years of night were done,
Aflame with hunger, stared on us
The fixed red eye of yonder sun.

Thou Wanderer from land to land,
Say who Thou art to bid us strive
Once more against the eternal Sea
That loves to take strong men alive.

Lo, we stood fast, and we endure:
But trust not Thou the Sea we know,
Mighty of bounty and of hate,
Slayer and friend, with ebb and flow.

Thou hast not measured strength as we
Sea-faring men that toil … And yet—
Once more, once more—at Thy strange word,
Master, we will let down the net!