Yet crab's love's no less fervent than bard's, if less musical--
'Tis a new thing I'd lilt--but a true thing.


XII

Old songs tell us, of all drinks for Englishmen fighting, ale's
Out and out best: salt water contents crab, it seems to me,
Though pugnacious as sailors, and skilled to steer right in gales
That craze pilots, if slow to sing--"Sleep'st thou? thou dream'st
o' me!"
In such love-strains as mine--or a nightingale's.


XIII

Ah, now, look you--tail foremost, the beast sets seaward--
The sea draws it, sand sucks it--he's wise, my crab!
From the napkin out jumps his one talent--good steward,
Just judge! So a man shirks the smile or the stab,
And sets his sail duly to leeward!


XIV

Trust me? Hardly! I bid you not lean (remark)
On my spirit, your spirit--my flesh, your flesh--
Hold my hand, and tread safe through the horrible dark--
Quench my soul as with sprinklings of snow, then refresh
With some blast of new bellows the spark!