With saucy air and curtly hail;
With rakish stern and meager crew,
They bristle up beneath the rail,
And warp the giant liners through.
They fight the stubborn tides that swirl
Through drawbridge, channel, slip and reach;
And cheat the angry seas that hurl
The pounding craft on shoal and beach.
They pilot up the sleet-lashed bay
With gunnels mantled white with snow;
On icebound rivers crunch their way
With hawsers strained across their tow.
With fitful blasts and jets of steam
They weave the fretting channel rips,
And thread the traffic of the stream
Like pygmies in the world of ships.
(Burt Franklin Jenness)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Anger Poems, Snow PoemsBased on Keywords: drawbridge, jets, bristle, mantled, liners, rips, pygmies, hawsers, rakish, gunnels, curtly