THE RIVER widens to a pathless sea <br /> Beneath the rain and mist and sullen skies. <br /> Look out the window; ’t is a gray emprise, <br />This piloting of massed humanity <br /> On such a day, from shore to busy shore, <br /> And breeds the thought that beauty is no more. <br /> <br />But see yon woman in the cabin seat, <br /> The Southland in her face and foreign dress; <br /> She bends above a babe, with tenderness <br />That mothers use; her mouth grows soft and sweet. <br /> Then, lifting eyes, ye saints in heaven, what pain <br /> In that strange look of hers into the rain! <br /> <br />There lies a vivid band of scarlet red <br /> With careless grace across her raven hair; <br /> Her cheek burns brown; and ’t is her way to wear <br />A gown where colors stand in satin’s stead. <br /> Her eye gleams dark as any you may see <br /> Along the winding roads of Italy. <br /> <br />What dreamings must be hers of sunny climes, <br /> This beggar woman midst the draggled throng! <br /> How must she pine for solaces of song, <br />For warmth and love to furnish laughing-times! <br /> Her every glance upon the waters gray <br /> Is piteous with some lost yesterday. <br /> <br />I ’ve seen a dove, storm-beaten, far at sea; <br /> And once a flower growing stark alone <br /> From out a rock; I ’ve heard a hound make moan, <br />Left masterless: but never came to me <br /> Ere this such sense of creatures torn apart <br /> From all that fondles life and feeds the heart.<br /><br />Richard Francis Burton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-a-ferry-boat/
