One moonlit night a ship drove in, <br />A ghost ship from the west, <br />Drifting with bare mast and lone tiller, <br />Like a mermaid drest <br />In long green weed and barnacles: <br />She beached and came to rest. <br /> <br />All the watchers of the coast <br />Flocked to view the sight, <br />Men and women streaming down <br />Through the summer night, <br />Found her standing tall and ragged <br />Beached in the moonlight. <br /> <br />Then one old woman looked and wept <br />'The 'Alice Jean'? But no! <br />The ship that took my Dick from me <br />Sixty years ago <br />Drifted back from the utmost west <br />With the ocean's flow? <br /> <br />'Caught and caged in the weedy pool <br />Beyond the western brink, <br />Where crewless vessels lie and rot <br />in waters black as ink. <br />Torn out again by a sudden storm <br />Is it the 'Jean', you think?' <br /> <br />A hundred women stared agape, <br />The menfolk nudged and laughed, <br />But none could find a likelier story <br />For the strange craft. <br />With fear and death and desolation <br />Rigged fore and aft. <br /> <br />The blind ship came forgotten home <br />To all but one of these <br />Of whom none dared to climb aboard her: <br />And by and by the breeze <br />Sprang to a storm and the 'Alice Jean' <br />Foundered in frothy seas.<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-8/
