Sunday, August 24, 2008

Home is the sailor...

Home is the sailor, home from the sea:
Her far-borne canvas furled
The ship pours shining on the quay
The plunder of the world.

Home is the hunter from the hill:
Fast in the boundless snare
All flesh lies taken at his will
And every fowl of air.

'Tis evening on the moorland free,
The starlit wave is still:
Home is the sailor from the sea,
The hunter from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson






4 comments:

iain said...

You may like to read 'The Invention of Love', Tom Stoppard's fascinating play about Housman. I only wish I could've seen it when it premiered in London.

Starched Collar said...

Stoppard can sometimes be too much - like a literary version of a Peter Greenaway movie, if you know what I mean - but for Housman I will look out for it. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

“It is not an accident that many homosexuals should show a special preference for sailors, for the sailor on shore is symbolically the innocent god from the sea who is not bound by the law of the land and can therefore do anything without guilt.” W H Auden 1950.

G.P.

Starched Collar said...

GP, if I may, I will steal your wonderfully found quote and make a post. Thanks Mate, for bringing some thoughtfulness into it :)