The White Ships and the Red

(For Alden March)     With drooping sail and pennant     That never a wind may reach,     They float in sunless waters     Beside a sunless beach.     Their mighty masts and funnels     Are white as driven snow,     And with a pallid radiance     Their ghostly bulwarks glow.     Here is a Spanish galleon     That once with gold was gay,     Here is a Roman trireme     Whose hues outshone the day.     But Tyrian dyes have faded,     And prows that once were bright     With rainbow stains wear only     Death's livid, dreadful white.     White as the ice that clove her     That unforgotten day,     Among her pallid sisters     The grim Titanic lay.     And through the leagues above her     She looked aghast, and said:     "What is this living ship that comes     Where every ship is dead?"     The ghostly vessels trembled     From ruined stern to prow;     What was this thing of terror     That broke their vigil now?     Down through the startled ocean     A mighty vessel came,     Not white, as all dead ships must be,     But red, like living flame!     The pale green waves about her     Were swiftly, strangely dyed,     By the great scarlet stream that flowed     From out her wounded side.     And all her decks were scarlet     And all her shattered crew.     She sank among the white ghost ships     And stained them through and through.     The grim Titanic greeted her     "And who art thou?" she said;     "Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet     Arrayed in living red?     We are the ships of sorrow     Who spend the weary night,     Until the dawn of Judgment Day,     Obscure and still and white."     "Nay," said the scarlet visitor,     "Though I sink through the sea,     A ruined thing that was a ship,     I sink not as did ye.     For ye met with your destiny     By storm or rock or fight,     So through the lagging centuries     Ye wear your robes of white.     "But never crashing iceberg     Nor honest shot of foe,     Nor hidden reef has sent me     The way that I must go.     My wound that stains the waters,     My blood that is like flame,     Bear witness to a loathly deed,     A deed without a name.     "I went not forth to battle,     I carried friendly men,     The children played about my decks,     The women sang -- and then --     And then -- the sun blushed scarlet     And Heaven hid its face,     The world that God created     Became a shameful place!     "My wrong cries out for vengeance,     The blow that sent me here     Was aimed in Hell.    My dying scream     Has reached Jehovah's ear.     Not all the seven oceans     Shall wash away that stain;     Upon a brow that wears a crown     I am the brand of Cain."     When God's great voice assembles     The fleet on Judgment Day,     The ghosts of ruined ships will rise     In sea and strait and bay.     Though they have lain for ages     Beneath the changeless flood,     They shall be white as silver,     But one -- shall be like blood.