Above and below the ship, this blue:
No cloud, no island, and which of two
Suns was celestial, submarine?
Each sailor shrugged. Who'd ever been
South of the Line . . . who knew . . . who knew?

There was a vessel in the sky—
Towering above, or below the eye?
If only something would drift past,
Seaweed or cloud to foul its mast.
Why should it, too, becalmed thus, lie?

Below and above, the seeming sea
Like a great eye which dreamily
Sees nothing, and by nothing is seen;
A waking that may, may not, have been.
‘Which of us now is you, is me?’

Everything double under the sun;
And doubly doubled to prove which one
Is under which, which sun above.
‘God, if the counterpart would move.’
But the movement there or here is none.

‘Silver's a man is full of cunning;
Monkey, he is on the taffrail running;
Agile, he props and dives right in.
One rises to meet him with a grin.
Head strikes head with a smack that's stunning.

‘No more Silver, he's under the sea;
Or up in the sky, or where is he?’
Lost in the ether, south of the Line;
The eight bells rang, but we heard nine:
And where are we, and where are we?

Lord, it is dark. The two suns met
In a blaze of flame we won't forget:
And which ate which, we could not say;
But night came on and at close of day
We cheered. ‘All's not proved double yet.’

Too soon, too soon! The moon that rose
Split into two, like silver shoes:
One walked the sky, one walked the sea;
But which walked which was strange to me:
For south of the Line, who knows . . . who knows?

‘This is the other half,’ I said.
‘Since Egypt, here they've buried the dead,
Under the earth and south of the Line.’
The eight bells rang and we heard nine.
‘We are they whom the mermaids wed.’

Doomed on a ship that is dead, becalmed;
In a winding sheet of blue, embalmed.
‘Friend, it is doubly strange I feel,
No-one will credit our plight was real;
We dead, in a ship that is dead, becalmed.’