T. Coleridge remember how Sammy sighs
To his pensive (I think he says) Sara--"most soothing-sweet"--
Crab's bulk's less (look!) than man's--yet (quoth Cancer) I am my size,
And my bulk's girth contents me! Man's maw (see?) craves two things--
wheat
And flesh likewise--man's gluttonous--damn his eyes!
XI
Crab's content with crab's provender: crab's love, if soothing,
Is no sweeter than pincers are soft--and a new sickle
Cuts no sharper than crab's claws nip, keen as boar's toothing!
Yet crab's love's no less fervent than bard's, if less musical--
'Tis a new thing I'd lilt--but a true thing.
XII
Old songs tell us, of all drinks for Englishmen fighting, ale's
Out and out best: salt water contents crab, it seems to me,
Though pugnacious as sailors, and skilled to steer right in gales
That craze pilots, if slow to sing--"Sleep'st thou? thou dream'st
o' me!"
In such love-strains as mine--or a nightingale's.
XIII
Ah, now, look you--tail foremost, the beast sets seaward--
The sea draws it, sand sucks it--he's wise, my crab!
From the napkin out jumps his one talent--good steward,
Just judge! So a man shirks the smile or the stab,
And sets his sail duly to leeward!
XIV
Trust me? Hardly! I bid you not lean (remark)
On my spirit, your spirit--my flesh, your flesh--
Hold my hand, and tread safe through the horrible dark--
Quench my soul as with sprinklings of snow, then refresh
With some blast of new bellows the spark!
XV
By no means! This were easy (men tell me) to say--
"Give her all, throw your chance up, fall back on her heart!"
(Say my friends) "she must change! after night follows day--"
No such fool! I am safe set in hell, for my part--
So let heaven do the worst now he may!
XVI
What they bid me? Well, this, nothing more--"Tell her this--
'You are mine, I yours, though the whole world fail--
Though things are not, I know there is one thing which is--
Though the oars break, there's hope for us yet--hoist the sail!
Oh, your heart! what's the heart? but your kiss!'
XVII
"Then she breaks, she drops down, she lies flat at your feet--
Take her then!" Well, I knew it--what fools are men!
Take the bee by her horns, will your honey prove sweet?
Sweet is grass--will you pasture your cows in a fen?
Oh, if contraries could but once meet!
XVIII
Love you call it? Some twitch in the moon's face (observe),
Wet blink of her eyelid, tear dropt about dewfall,
Cheek flushed or obscured--does it make the sky swerve?
Fetch the test, work the question to rags, bring to proof all--
Find what souls want and bodies deserve!
XIX
Ah, we know you! Your soul works to infinite ends,
Frets, uses life up for death's sake, takes pains,
Flings down love's self--"but you, bear me witness, my friends!
Have I lost spring? count up (see) the winter's fresh gains!
Is the shrub spoilt? the pine's hair impends!"
XX
What, you'd say--"Mark how God works! Years crowd, time wears thin,
Earth keeps good yet, the sun goes on, stars hold their own,
And you'll change, climb past sight of the world, shift your skin,
Never heeding how life moans--'more flesh now, less bone!'
For that cheek's worn waste outline (death's grin)
XXI
"Pleads with time still--'what good if I lose this? but see--'"
(There's the crab gone!) "'I said, "Though earth sinks,"'" (you perceive?
Ah, true, back there!) your soul now--"'"yet some vein might be
(Could one find it alive in the heart's core's pulse, cleave
Through the life-springs where "you" melts in "me")--
XXII
"'"Some true vein of the absolute soul, which survives
All that flesh runs to waste through"--and lo, this fails!
Here's death close on us! One life? a million of lives!
Why choose one sail to watch of these infinite sails?
Time's a tennis-play? thank you, no, fives!
XXIII
"'Stop life's ball then!' Such folly! melt earth down for that,
Till the pure ore eludes you and leaves you raw scoriae?
Pish, the vein's wrong!" But you, friends--come, what were you at
When God spat you out suddenly? what was the story He
Cut short thus, the growth He laid flat?
XXIV
Wait! the crab's twice alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul,
Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note,
I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole!
Safe in sand there--your skirts smooth out all as they float!)
I, shirk drinking through flaws in the bowl?
XXV
Or suppose now that rock's cleft--grim, scored to the quick,
As a man's face kept fighting all life through gets scored,
Mossed and marked with grey purulent leprosies, sick,
Flat and foul as man's life here (be swift with your sword--
Cut the soul out, stuck fast where thorns prick!)
XXVI
--Say it let the rock's heart out, its meaning, the thing
All was made for, devised, ruled out gradually, planned--
Ah, that sea-shell, perhaps--since it lies, such a ring
Of pure colour, a cup full of sunbeams, to stand
(Say, in Lent) at the priest's hand--(no king!)
XXVII
Blame the cleft then? Praise rather! So--just a chance gone!
Had you said--"Save the seed and secure souls in flower"--
Ah, how time laughs, years palpitate, pro grapples con,
Till one day you shrug shoulders--"Well, gone, the good hour!"
Till one night--"Is God off now? or on?"
IV
UP THE SPOUT
I
Hi! Just you drop that! Stop, I say!
Shirk work, think slink off, twist friend's wrist?
Where that spined sand's lined band's the bay--
Lined blind with true sea's blue, as due--
Promising--not to pay?
II
For the sea's debt leaves wet the sand;
Burst worst fate's weights in one burst gun?
A man's own yacht, blown--What? off land?
Tack back, or veer round here, then--queer!
Reef points, though--understand?
III
I'm blest if I do.
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