(For Alden March)
With drooping sail and pennant That never a wind may reach, They float in sunless waters Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels Are white as driven snow, And with a pallid radiance Their ghostly bulwarks glow.
Here is a Spanish galleon That once with gold was gay, Here is a Roman trireme Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded, And prows that once were bright With rainbow stains wear only Death's livid, dreadful white.
White as the ice that clove her That unforgotten day, Among her pallid sisters The grim Titanic lay.
And through the leagues above her She looked aghast, and said:
"What is this living ship that comes Where every ship is dead?"
The ghostly vessels trembled From ruined stern to prow;
What was this thing of terror That broke their vigil now?
Down through the startled ocean A mighty vessel came, Not white, as all dead ships must be, But red, like living flame!
The pale green waves about her Were swiftly, strangely dyed, By the great scarlet stream that flowed From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships And stained them through and through.
The grim Titanic greeted her "And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet Arrayed in living red?