IT IS NOT EASY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 73

IT IS NOT EASY.

It is not easy, the harvest of the ocean, Not like wheat to be reaped in a long hot day With cider under the hedge, uot like potatoes To be dug for leaning down to finger the clay, Not like apples or almonds with ladders leaning Against the fruit-filled boughs, not like milk and cream Drumming into a pail at dawn and evening, Not like watercress gathered in the current of a stream — No, for fishing a man must be stout armed and hearted, Dawn and dark he must harness the wind, he must rein The unbroken wind to his plough and his furrow Over his own head may close rolling again. Rain and sleet he must bear blinded and rocking, He must fight through long nights when the winds cut like flails, Haul .at the lines and hold to the tiller And struggle half-frozen with storm-mad-dened sails. It is not easy, the harvest of the ocean. A hard life have its gleaners and one often cut short, But they reap without sowing which is sweet to wild natures And it is as conquerors that they storm into port— A hard life but not dull like the life of the farmyard, The rutted long struggle with niggardly ground. The sailors go out to the curve of the ocean And their field has no hedge and their road has no bound I —Elizabeth J. Coatsworth, in The Bookman.