Our apprehensions give

Us to another time, and cast

Our hapless horoscope; we did not live

Either in the present or the past.

And thus afloat upon our fears

We scarcely lived, and dread to be.

Straight on the reckless pilot sheers;

Our sons are born upon the sea,

And in the waves will live and die,

Not drift to the murderous strand

But reading for portents in the sky,

Knowing too well, too well, the land.