Epitaph for a lost adventurer

Say that he loved the lovely
 Waywardness of water;
 Say that he loved
The glamour of old ships
Better than man loves wife or daughter,
 Or a woman's lips.

 Say that the morning light upon the sea
Was lovelier than Lilith's golden hair,
 And starlight lost in waves immensity
 More fair than Eve was fair.

 Say that the lace at a breaker's emerald seam
 Enticed him more than lace at Delilah's throat,
 And tell how he preferred the strident scream
 Of a gull to the skylark's note.

Say that he rests where he longed to be:
 Home is the sailor at the bottom of the sea.
 Take down his epitaph, etch it in sand
 When the tide goes out he will understand.

MARION DOYLE.