| I HAVE seen old ships sail like swans asleep | |
| Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, | |
| With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep | |
| For Famagusta and the hidden sun | |
| That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; | 5 |
| And all those ships were certainly so old— | |
| Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun, | |
| Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, | |
| The pirate Genoese | |
| Hell-raked them till they rolled | 10 |
| Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold. | |
| But now through friendly seas they softly run, | |
| Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green, | |
| Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold. | |
| |
| But I have seen, | 15 |
| Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn | |
| And image tumbled on a rose-swept bay, | |
| A drowsy ship of some yet older day; | |
| And, wonder's breath indrawn, | |
| Thought I—who knows—who knows—but in that same | 20 |
| (Fished up beyond Aeaea, patched up new | |
| —Stern painted brighter blue—) | |
| That talkative, bald-headed seaman came | |
| (Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar) | |
| From Troy's doom-crimson shore, | 25 |
| And with great lies about his wooden horse | |
| Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course. | |
| |
| It was so old a ship—who knows, who knows? | |
| —And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain | |
| To see the mast burst open with a rose, | 30 |
| And the whole deck put on its leaves again. | |
