Down by the flash of the restless water <br />The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; <br />Laughing at life and the world they sought her, <br />And out she swung to the silvering bay. <br />Then off they flew on their roystering way, <br />And the keen moon fired the light foam flying <br />Up from the flood where the faint stars play, <br />And the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. <br /> <br />'T was a king's fair son with a king's fair daughter, <br />And full three hundred beside, they say, -- <br />Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter <br />So soon to seize them and hide them for aye; <br />But they danced and they drank and their souls grew gay, <br />Nor ever they knew of a ghoul's eye spying <br />Their splendor a flickering phantom to stray <br />Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. <br /> <br />Through the mist of a drunken dream they brought her <br />(This wild white bird) for the sea-fiend's prey: <br />The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her, <br />And hurled her down where the dead men stay. <br />A torturing silence of wan dismay -- <br />Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying -- <br />Then down they sank to slumber and sway <br />Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. <br /> <br />ENVOY <br /> <br />Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway <br />Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? -- <br />Or does love still shudder and steel still slay, <br />Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying?<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballad-of-a-ship/
