III

     Man and Angels, ye
     A sluggish fen shall drain,
     Shall quell a warring sea. 
     Man and Angels, ye,
     Whom stain of strife befouls,
     A light to kindle souls
     Bear radiant in the stain.

     The last contention

     I

     Young captain of a crazy bark! 
     O tameless heart in battered frame! 
     Thy sailing orders have a mark,
     And hers is not the name.

     II

     For action all thine iron clanks
     In cravings for a splendid prize;
     Again to race or bump thy planks
     With any flag that flies.

     III

     Consult them; they are eloquent
     For senses not inebriate. 
     They trust thee on the star intent,
     That leads to land their freight.

     IV

     And they have known thee high peruse
     The heavens, and deep the earth, till thou
     Didst into the flushed circle cruise
     Where reason quits the brow.

     V

     Thou animatest ancient tales,
     To prove our world of linear seed: 
     Thy very virtue now assails,
     A tempter to mislead.

     VI

     But thou hast answer I am I;
     My passion hallows, bids command: 
     And she is gracious, she is nigh: 
     One motion of the hand!

     VII

     It will suffice; a whirly tune
     These winds will pipe, and thou perform
     The nodded part of pantaloon
     In thy created storm.

     VIII

     Admires thee Nature with much pride;
     She clasps thee for a gift of morn,
     Till thou art set against the tide,
     And then beware her scorn.

     IX

     Sad issue, should that strife befall
     Between thy mortal ship and thee! 
     It writes the melancholy scrawl
     Of wreckage over sea.

     X

     This lady of the luting tongue,
     The flash in darkness, billow’s grace,
     For thee the worship; for the young
     In muscle the embrace.

     XI

     Soar on thy manhood clear from those
     Whose toothless Winter claws at May,
     And take her as the vein of rose
     Athwart an evening grey.

     Periander

     I

     How died Melissa none dares shape in words. 
     A woman who is wife despotic lords
     Count faggot at the question, Shall she live! 
     Her son, because his brows were black of her,
     Runs barking for his bread, a fugitive,
     And Corinth frowns on them that feed the cur.

     II

     There is no Corinth save the whip and curb
     Of Corinth, high Periander; the superb
     In magnanimity, in rule severe. 
     Up on his marble fortress-tower he sits,
     The city under him:  a white yoked steer,
     That bears his heart for pulse, his head for wits.