No More Learning

Has he not led us into these waste seas
For long enough?

SECOND SAILOR.

Aye, long and long enough.

FIRST SAILOR.

We have not come upon a shore or ship
These dozen weeks.

SECOND SAILOR.

And I had thought to make
A good round sum upon this cruise, and turn--
For I am getting on in life--to something
That has less ups and downs than robbery.

FIRST SAILOR.

I am so lecherous with abstinence
I'd give the profit of nine voyages
For that red Moll that had but the one eye.

SECOND SAILOR.

And all the ale ran out at the new moon;
And now that time puts water in my blood,
The ale cup is my father and my mother.

FIRST SAILOR.

It would be better to turn home again,
Whether he will or no; and better still
To make an end while he is sleeping there.
If we were of one mind I'd do it.

SECOND SAILOR.
Were't not
That there is magic in that harp of his,
That makes me fear to raise a hand against him,
I would be of your mind; but when he plays it
Strange creatures flutter up before one's eyes,
Or cry about one's ears.

FIRST SAILOR.

Nothing to fear.

SECOND SAILOR.

Do you remember when we sank that galley
At the full moon?

FIRST SAILOR.

He played all through the night.

SECOND SAILOR.

Until the moon had set; and when I looked
Where the dead drifted, I could see a bird
Like a grey gull upon the breast of each.
While I was looking they rose hurriedly,
And after circling with strange cries awhile
Flew westward; and many a time since then
I've heard a rustling overhead in the wind.

FIRST SAILOR.

I saw them on that night as well as you.
But when I had eaten and drunk a bellyful
My courage came again.

SECOND SAILOR.

But that's not all.
The other night, while he was playing it,
A beautiful young man and girl came up
In a white, breaking wave; they had the look
Of those that are alive for ever and ever.