“To those who live and toil and lowly die,
Who past beyond and leave no lasting trace”
William McFee (1881–1966) American writer
Dedication
Casuals of the Sea (1916)
Context: To those who live and toil and lowly die,
Who past beyond and leave no lasting trace,
To those from whom our queen Prosperity
Has turned away her fair and fickle face;
To those frail craft upon the restless Sea
Of Human Life, who strike the rocks uncharted,
Who loom, sad phantoms, near us, drearily,
Storm-driven, rudderless, with timbers started;
To those poor Casuals of the way-worn earth,
The feckless wastage of our cunning schemes,
This book is dedicate, their hidden worth
And beauty I have seen in vagrant dreams!
The things we touch, the things we dimly see,
The stiff strange tapestries of human thought,
The silken curtains of our fantasy
Are with their sombre histories o'erwrought.
And yet we know them not, our skill is vain to find
The mute soul's agony, the visions of the blind.