Listen Sailor

Listen, sailor, listen! Who is this that calls
In the shadowed nutmeg island, under the blue walls
Of those Moluccan mountains, where the crimson parrot flies?
Listen, sailor, listen sailor … who is this that cries?

Apple-green the water is, over the coral tops,
And the sand is silver where the anchor drops,
And fish like sapphire arrows and bright as tangerines
Float down in the olive- and the apple-greens.

Our ship has come for copra and shining pearls,
Nutmeg red in the husk as the mouths of island girls:
Sweet-scented spice-groves that stand along the shore
Of Ternate, and Tawali, and Tidor.

Aye, and we have found them, we have filled the hold
With the stuff of rainbows that is more than gold,
In the violet evening and the morning seas
Of the soft Moluccas and the Celebes.

But we have yet one isle to find, and when the morning star
Sinks down low and shakes her silver wings on Macassar,
We will weigh our anchor and westward turn our prow —
Listen sailor, listen sailor! Who is singing now?