There you are, alone again in a cockle-shell boat,
Fighting on a sea-bed with great clouds from the sky
And rocked by the sea, wild beast, as if by a wet-nurse,
Smothered in song by its iron paps.

Breakers heaved up with darkness, serpents, eels,
And in the swarm, fanatical roundworms
Pursue you: May victory and struggle cast you down
Since you breached the storm with your brow.

Above your steady victory's work
A single star-sliver watches over all the world
Like a spider from the sun down-twined,
Security and shield in the passing whirlpool.

I see you carried off by the wind; the elements
Do not spare you. As in that time when man, having boat
Nor oar, was a sick and pallid monkey
Terror-stricken before celestial walls.

Far off you are, far off. Like butterflies that leave
Their chrysalides on branches far from their native peachtree.
Far off indeed, brother, from yourself and home,
Chasing the whole ocean, a foreigner, riding the waves.

Where does he go alone, woven in so dense a sea?