MORLEY ROBERTS 59 



"Sunrise, sir," said the keeper, with his watch 



in his hand ; and together they looked eastward, 



where an edge of gold was eating into the banked 



clouds on the horizon. 



Filson Young. 



Dawn on a Cargo Boat -vi.^ -^^ 



(From A Tramp's Notebook) 



■pUT that's the dawn ! 



Morning, and the glory of it, the grey wash 

 of Eternity ; sea-grey and world-grey and sky- 

 grey, all in one great wash with a little whiteness 

 standing for daylight. Beyond the illimitable 

 wash where the sea breaks against the sky is 

 the sun ; source of all, strength of all. And there 

 is no sleep to wash out of our eyes before we 

 catch up strength from it, and encouragement. 

 Lately we might have raised the Ajax cry, " In the 

 light, in the light, destroy us " ; but now we see the 

 little sea-plant of grey-green grow in the east, and 

 we are strong. There is light, or a blight, a grey- 

 ness out ahead, and the deck whitens all awash, 

 and the "old man" shivers in his oilskin coat as 

 he hangs on to a pin in the rail to watch us. The 

 poop is wet and gleaming, wet with the spray of 

 following seas, and, as our .ship rolls, the swash 

 of shipped seas hisses, and her cleanness is as the 

 cleanness of something newly varnished. Once 



