DESCRIPTION:
Poetry
Sirens' Call

Keening sirens fill the night
With yearning song of sheer delight;
The loneliness of solemn men
Grows deeper as the words they ken

Rising, rippling roaring clear
Fading back with edge of light
As spears and arrows, sharpened, near
The hearts of warriors cold with fright.

The yearning of the earth goes on;
To find a home, to find a mate
And hapless sailors, lacking these
Cry out, and to their deaths they leap.

How many sailors, brave good men
Crying for their earthly home
Go out sating yondering yen
Out to sea, or hill, or glen,
And finding aught to fill their soul
Feast on it, and pay their toll
Upon the world, or wat'ry way
And yet, returning, find their bowl
Empty save for three months pay
And yearning for a woman's love
Give all away, give all away,
And drinking sing and dance away
Their future in a twilit day.

And how many men, less brave and bold,
And yearning not for life at sea
Find that to which they have and hold,
And to it cling most properly,
And ten years later half it lose
To adder's tongue and blue-sleeved arm,
Men paid yearly by himself
To serve, protect, and keep from harm.

To which of these does siren's call
More dreadful sound and rolling break
O'er the waves and rolling bow-
The woman who may change her mind,
ten years from now, and take your kids,
And walking give you up for dead,
Or those strange women on the shore
Who call you from your daily oar,
And bid you rise, throw down your chains
Leap into the rolling waves
Hold on to mermaid's trailing braids
(Trust in Mother's warm embrace)
Ride up the shoals on backs of fish
Or swim upon the moonlit waves
Or glory in the emptiness
Of Mother's soft dark salt abyss.