Sailor

The sailor has a sense of defeat as he gets up with a start
And finds that instead of taking his post at the helm
He had dozed off hoping that his ship at mid sea
Would take care of itself.
He pulls himself together, resumes his position of watch and toil.

Sun-the din and hurry of a port nearby
And the row of palms hail him.
His ship moves on.

To the priestess with a shock of golden hair
The evening sun seems like the egg of the bird of paradise.
To the farmer a plaything amid his acres of ripening wheat.
Human heads huddled together in dark
Have a glimpse of Sunray’s slant
Piercing like a lance into their hovel;
They look, rapt, at the golden beam and the motes in it
Rapidly throbbing and flying-flying and throbbing; why?
to what end?

O Sailor, you press on, keep pace with the Sun;
You have been caught awhile in the mirrors of
Babylon. Nineveh, Egypt, China and Ur;
Loosened yourself and headed for other shores.
The impulse from Vaishali, Byzantium and Alexandria
Has been to you like thin, straight candles glowing on
remembered beaches.
They are good, but whet the quest;
You want deeper knowledge, completer experience.

As long as honeybees with wings sparkling like spray fly in
the sun
And the heron with a surer touch than the jet plane
Brings home the virgin vastness of the blue
Man will not rest content;
Purged of follies, sin and tragic mistakes
His sailor-soul will fare forward
To move into a better discovery of life on this planet,
A greater joy-a deeper communion.