Or signals flashed to warn or ward?
Yea, signals lanced in breakers high;
But doom on warning follows hard:
While yet they veer in hope to shun,
They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are
one.

But beating hearts a drum-beat calls
And prompt the men to quarters go;
Discipline, curbing nature, rules--
Heroic makes who duty know:
They execute the trump's command,
Or in peremptory places wait and stand.

Yet cast about in blind amaze--
As through their watery shroud they peer:
"We tacked from land: then how betrayed?
Have currents swerved us--snared us here?"
None heed the blades that clash in place
Under lamps dashed down that lit the
magnet's case.

Ah, what may live, who mighty swim,
Or boat-crew reach that shore forbid,
Or cable span? Must victors drown--
Perish, even as the vanquished did?
Man keeps from man the stifled moan;
They shouldering stand, yet each in heart
how lone.