ROADWAYS

JOHN MASEFIELD

One road leads to London,
One road runs to Wales,
My road leads me seawards
To the white dipping sails.

One road leads to the river,
As it goes singing slow;
My road leads to shipping,
Where the bronzed sailors go;

Leads me, lures me, calls me
To the salt green tossing sea;
A road without earth's road dust
Is the right road for me.

A wet road heaving, shining, And wild with seagulls' cries, A mad salt seawind blowing The salt spray in my eyes.

My road calls me, lures me West, east, south, and north;

Most roads lead men homewards,

My road leads me forth,

To add more miles to the tally
Of gray miles left behind,
In quest of that one beauty
God put me here to find.

HARK TO THE SHOUTING WIND

HENRY TIMROD

Hark to the shouting wind!

Hark to the flying rain!

And I care not though I never see
A bright blue sky again.

There are thoughts in my breast to-day
That are not for human speech;
But I hear them in the driving storm,
And the roar upon the beach.

And oh, to be with that ship

That I watch through the blinding brine! O wind! for thy sweep of land and sea! O sea! for a voice like thine!

Shout on, thou pitiless wind,

To the frightened and flying rain!
I care not though I never see
A calm blue sky again.

THE SEA

BARRY CORNWALL

The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence whereso'er I go;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me;
For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,

In the noisy hour when I was born;

And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild

As welcomed to life the ocean child!

I've lived since then in calm and strife,

Full fifty summers, a sailor's life,

With wealth to spend and power to range,

But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me,

Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

A STRANGE SHIPWRECK

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The reef on which we had struck was off a little isle they call Earraid, which lay low and black upon the larboard. Sometimes the swell broke clean over us; sometimes it only ground the poor brig upon the reef, so that we could hear her beat herself to pieces; and what with the great noise of the sails, and the singing of the wind, and the flying of the spray in the moonlight, and the sense of danger, I think my head must have been partly turned, for I could scarcely understand the things I saw.

Presently I observed the seamen busy round the skiff, and still in the same blank, ran over to assist them; and as soon as I set my hand to work, my mind came clear again. It was no very easy task, for the skiff lay amidships and was full of hamper, and the breaking of the heavier seas continually forced us to give over and hold on; but we all wrought like horses while we could. Suddenly there came a sea so huge that it lifted the brig right up and canted her over on her beam, and at the sudden tilting of the ship I was cast clean over the bulwarks into the sea.

I went down, and drank my fill, and then came up, and got a blink of the moon, and then down again. They say a man sinks a third time for good. I cannot be made like other folk, then; for I would not like to write how often I went down, or how often I came up again. All the while, I was being hurled along, and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed whole; and the thing was so distracting to wits, that I was neither sorry nor afraid.

Presently I found I was holding to a spar, which helped

me somewhat. And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to myself.

It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was amazed to see how far I had travelled from the brig. I hailed her, indeed; but it was plain she was already out of cry. She was still holding together; but whether or not they had yet launched the boat, I was too far off and too low down to see.

I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well as of drowning. The shores of Earraid were close in; I could see in the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica in the rocks.

"Well," thought I to myself, "if I cannot get as far as that it's strange!"

I had no skill of swimming, but when I laid hold upon the yard with both arms, and kicked out with both feet, I soon began to find that I was moving. Hard work it was, and mortally slow; but in about an hour of kicking and splashing, I had got well in between the points of sandy bay surrounded by low hills.

The sea was here quite quiet; there was no sound of any surf; the moon shone clear; and I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate. But it was dry land; and when at last it grew so shallow that I could leave the yard and wade ashore upon my feet, I cannot tell if I was more tired or more grateful. Both at least, I was; tired as I never was before that night; and grateful to God as I trust I have been often, though never with more cause.

With my stepping ashore I began the most unhappy part of my adventures. It was half-past twelve in the morning and though the wind was broken by the land, it was a cold night. I dared not sit down (for I thought I should have frozen), but took off my shoes and walked to and fro upon