Docks

Strolling along By the teeming docks, I watch the ships put out. Black ships that heave and lunge And move like mastodons Arising from lethargic sleep. The fathomed harbor Calls them not nor dares Them to a strain of action, But outward, on and outward, Sounding low-reverberating calls, Shaggy in the half-lit distance, They pass the pointed headland, View the wide, far-lifting wilderness And leap with cumulative speed To test the challenge of the sea. Plunging, Doggedly onward plunging, Into salt and mist and foam and sun.