Classic Poem

I have lured him with opaline light
And sung him to confident sleep —
And then, in the horror of night,
I have strangled his cry in the deep.

I have purred at his feet on the sand
And whispered, caressing his sail,
Till, far from the sheltering land,
I might drive him to death in the gale.

I have promised him substance and store
If he gave me his sons and his fleet —
And then, having cozened him sore,
I have flung up his dead at his feet.

I have trapped him with fog and with shoal —
Yet, by line and by light and by sound
He drives, undismayed, to his goal —
He makes me his road the world round.

He spans me with log and with lead;
He brands me with marks for his ken —
He buries the tale of his dead,
And turns his ships seaward again!