The sailors come ashore Out of their hollow ships, Mild-looking middle-class boys Who read the comic strips; One baseball game is more To them than fifty Troys.

They look a bit lost, set down In this unamerican place Where natives pass with laws And futures of their own; They are not here because But only just-in-case.

The whore and ne’er-do-well Who pester them with junk In their grubby ways at least Are serving the Social Beast; They neither make nor sell — No wonder they get drunk.

But the ships on the dazzling blue Of the harbor actually gain From having nothing to do; Without a human will To tell them whom to kill Their structures are humane

And, far from looking lost, Look as if they were meant To be pure abstract design By some master of pattern and line, Certainly worth every cent Of the millions they must have cost.