T LONGSHORE POETRY 5 



The poet would probably think the longshore- 

 man dull and ignorant; the longshoreman 

 would be quite sure of the poet's ignorance. 

 Small changes in the wind are hardly noticeable 

 back on land; there is no true wind at all to be 

 found among the eddying draughts of cities. 

 Deep-sea sailing vessels beat up against it, or run 

 before it, and steamships steer into the teeth of it; 

 but a longshoreman, in his little open boat, is at 

 the mercy of its every variation. If the wind 

 freshens he must hard up and get home; if it 

 falls to a breath he must take to his oars and row. 

 An hour's fair weather, and he is to sea about his 

 business. He may not have another chance that 

 moon. 



There is not for him less poetry, if fewer poems, 

 in the changing voices of the sea, because they 

 command his life as well as talk to him; because 

 they bespeak his workaday doings as well as his 

 moods of wonder; because they assail his ears 

 so continuously that he no longer listens con- 

 sciously to them, any more than he listens to 

 his own heart-beats — s'ecotite vivre, hears himself 

 live, as the French say. If it is the deep ground- 

 rumble of London which makes one feel con- 

 tinually, at the back of one's mind, the presence of 



