Read "Mid-Ocean in War-Time" by Joyce Kilmer online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(For My Mother)
The fragile splendour of the level sea, / The moon's serene and silver-veilèd face, / Make of this vessel an enchanted place / Full of white mirth and golden sorcery. / Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be / Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace, / And the old stars, in their unending race, / Shall heed and envy young humanity.
And yet to-night, a hundred leagues away, / These waters blush a strange and awful red. / Before the moon, a cloud obscenely grey / Rises from decks that crash with flying lead. / And these stars smile their immemorial way / On waves that shroud a thousand newly dead!