The Fisherman. (Mindanao, Philippines.)

In the dark waveless sea,
    Deep blue under deep blue,
The fisher drifts by on the tide
    In his small pole-balanced canoe.

Above him the cloud-clapped hills
    Crown the dense jungly sweeps;
The cocoa-nut groves hedge round
    The hut where the beach-wave sleeps.

Is it not better so
    To be as this savage is,
Than to live the wage-slave's life
    Of hopeless agonies?

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams (27 September 1862 – 4 September 1893) was an English writer, poet, dramatist, and social reformer. His literary work often reflected his radical socialist views. Adams lived a life marred by poverty and struggles with his health, eventually committing suicide at the age of 30. Despite his brief life, his contributions to literature and social thought remain significant.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

A Glimpse Of China. "Caste."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To John Ruskin. (After Reading His "Modern Painters.")

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To Charles Parnell.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

Song Of The Dispossessed. "To Jesus."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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A Death At Sea. (Coral Sea, Australia.)

I.


Dead in the sheep-pen he lies,
    Wrapped in an old brown sail.
The smiling blue sea and the skies
    Know not sorrow nor wail.

Dragged up out of the hold,
    Dead on his last way home,
Worn-out, wizened, a Chinee old, -
    O he is safe - at home!

Brother, I stand not as these
    Staring upon you here.
One of earth's patient toilers at peace
    I see, I revere!


II.


In the warm cloudy night we go
    From the motionless ship;
Our lanterns feebly glow;
    Our oars drop and drip.

We land on the thin pale beach,
    The coral isle's round us;
A glade of driven sand we reach;
    Our burial ground's found us.

There we dig him a grave, jesting;
    We know not hi...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

The Drunken Fisherman

Wallowing in this bloody sty,
I cast for fish that pleased my eye
(Truly Jehovah's bow suspends
No pots of gold to weight its ends);
Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout
Rose to my bait. They flopped about
My canvas creel until the moth
Corrupted its unstable cloth.

A calendar to tell the day;
A handkerchief to wave away
The gnats; a couch unstuffed with storm
Pouching a bottle in one arm;
A whiskey bottle full of worms;
And bedroom slacks: are these fit terms
To mete the worm whose molten rage
Boils in the belly of old age?

Once fishing was a rabbit's foot,
O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot,
Let suns stay in or suns step out:
Life danced a jig on the sperm-whale's spout,
The fisher's fluent and obscene
Catches kept his con...

Robert Lowell

The Fishers.

Silence! stir not! for a whisper
    Would affright thy pretty prey;
Not a motion, little lisper,
    Else the fish will glide away.

Hush! he's coming! he is swimming
    Slowly round and round the bait;
Steady! though thine eye is brimming
    Full of mirth that will not wait.

And thy brother near thee kneeling
    Fears to hear thy ringing shout;
Gently! near and nearer stealing
    Comes the brightly spotted trout.

There! thy hook has caught him surely;
    Firmly hold thy slender rod;
Pull away! and then securely
    Place him on the grassy sod.



'Neath the green boughs rustling o'er you,
    Fish away the livelong day;
And with evening's star before you,
    Wander home at twilight gray.

H. P. Nichols

Night Fishing At Antibes

    A beach back of bric à brac,
    wine goblet of sky ... .
    the horizon beginning
    somewhere between Nod &
    nigh unto forever with
    only the sigh of a Casuarina pine
    or sea-grape to force a smile.

    It was entering into twilight
    - our minds were sailing ships,
    mere vagaries upon the waves,
    mine more a clippership
    on the Frisco to China run.

    Soirèe intimée,
    apèrtif, digestif?
    A bottle of rum
    with Eleuthera for a name
    - the prettiest coves
    have steadfast winds
    dark about portside.

    Silvery light of stars,
    the stars like black hansom cabs
    with livried footmen before
    shark-toothed clouds,
    a shark-faced moon,
    the sigh...

Paul Cameron Brown

The Fish

Although you hide in the ebb and flow
Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind,
And blame you with many bitter words.

William Butler Yeats

A Mahommadan Ship Fireman.

Up from the oven pit,
    The hell where poor men toil,
At the sunset hour he comes
    Clean-clothed, washed from soil.

On the fo'c's'le head he kneels,
    His face to the hallowed West.
He prays, and bows and prays.
    Does he pray for death and rest?

Francis William Lauderdale Adams