Roaming In Romance.

Then all else you need is an hour of old Fugit's “tempus,” a peaceful mind, and a mile or two of wharves. For the wharves are where the world steps off to shake your hand and say “how do,” and its hundred inevitable equivalents. There the air is heavy with the breath of foreign lands and the scenery is strewn with raw material for building castles in Spain, log cabins in Canada, pagodas in China, bridges in Japan, temples in Burma, and any other structure your sub-conscious contractor craves to erect on the building sites of your brain. For—The sea is the open track Whence Romance comes, Tramping through heat and wrack, Beating her Diesel drums, Bearing her merchandise, Singing her wares—Sugar and tea and spice, China and chairs.

The sea is the road she bides, Keeping the track, Salt on her heaving sides, Spray on her back.

Out of the East and the West, Beating her drums, Tramping at Trade's behest; That's how she comes! Who but the knowing can tell

Where Romance bides, Battered by blizzard and swell,

Rust on her streaming sides.

Which but the eye that discerns, And the vision that speaks, Takes what the gold-beater spurns, And the Romancer seeks, Black and high-pooped though she be, Blistered and bare, Those with discernment can see The romance that is there.