Classic Poem

Still at the wheel to labor down the sea
With battered funnels and with riven flags,
To overcome the mountains on bare crags
Above the thunder and the farthest tree,
To face a flaring city—the mad glee
And ululations of her reeling masques
And human drift—are self-sustaining tasks,
Because they challenge by their majesty.

But in these swamps behind the hovel yard
To make my obscene way through stench and flies
And oozy fibers, and refuse glass and shard,
And still to keep some token in my eyes
Of inward dignity and God's good skies,
This, this is manhood, this is truly hard.