THE STORY OF

A ROUND-HOUSE AND

OTHER POEMS

BY

JOHN MASEFIELD

AUTHOR OF "THE EVERLASTING MERCY"

"THE WIDOW IN THE BYE STREET," ETC.

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1915

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1912 and 1913,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1912.

New and revised edition, June, 1913.

Reprinted September, 1913. March, 1914; January, 1915.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing Co. -- Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

Dauber

Biography

Ships

Truth

They closed her Eyes

The Harp

I saw the Ramparts

That Blessed Sunlight

Song

The Ballad of Sir Bors

Spanish Waters

Cargoes

Captain Stratton's Fancy

An Old Song re-sung

St. Mary's Bells

London Town

The Emigrant

Port of Holy Peter

Beauty

The Seekers

Prayer

Dawn

Laugh and be Merry

June Twilight

Roadways

Midsummer Night

The Harper's Song

The Gentle Lady

The Dead Knight

Sorrow of Mydath

Twilight

Invocation

Posted as Missing

A Creed

When Bony Death

The West Wind

Her Heart

Being her Friend

Fragments

Born for Nought Else

Tewkesbury Road

The Death Rooms

Ignorance

Sea Fever

The Watch in the Wood

C. L. M.

Waste

Third Mate

The Wild Duck

Christmas, 1903

The Word

THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE

AND OTHER POEMS

DAUBER

I

Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck,

All work aboard was over for the hour,

And some men sang and others played at check,

Or mended clothes or watched the sunset glower.

The bursting west was like an opening flower,

And one man watched it till the light was dim,

But no one went across to talk to him.

He was the painter in that swift ship's crew,

Lampman and painter--tall, a slight-built man,

Young for his years, and not yet twenty-two;

Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan.

Bullied and damned at since the voyage

"Being neither man nor seaman by his tally,"

He bunked with the idlers just abaft the galley.

His work began at five; he worked all day,

Keeping no watch and having all night in.

His work was what the mate might care to say;

He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin;

His dungarees were smeared with paraffin.

"Go drown himself" his round-house mates advised him,

And all hands called him "Dauber" and despised him.

Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar,

Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side,

Slushing his hands to get away the tar,

And then he washed himself and rinsed and dried;

Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager eyed,

He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there stood

Watching the gold of heaven turn to blood.

They stood there by the rail while the swift ship

Tore on out of the tropics, straining her sheets,

Whitening her trackway to a milky strip,

Dim with green bubbles and twisted water meets,

Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and cleats,

Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts leaned:

They watched how the seas struck and burst and greened.

Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side.

"Why did you come to sea, painter?" he said.

"I want to be a painter," he replied,

"And know the sea and ships from A to Z,

And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead;

Ships under skysails running down the Trade--

Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer made.

"But there's so much to learn, with sails and ropes,

And how the sails look, full or being furled,

And how the lights change in the troughs and slopes,

And the sea's colours up and down the world,

And how a storm looks when the sprays are hurled

High as the yard (they say) I want to see;

There's none ashore can teach such things to me.

"And then the men and rigging, and the way

Ships move, running or beating, and the poise

At the roll's end, the checking in the sway--

I want to paint them perfect, short of the noise;

And then the life, the half-decks full of boys,

The fo'c'sles with the men there, dripping wet:

I know the subjects that I want to get.

"It's not been done, the sea, not yet been done,

From the inside, by one who really knows;

I'd give up all if I could be the one,

But art comes dear the way the money goes.

So I have come to sea, and I suppose

Three years will teach me all I want to learn

And make enough to keep me till I earn."

Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved,

Drawing the leap of water off the side

Where the great clipper trampled iron-hooved,

Making the blue hills of the sea divide,

Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride,

And leaping on full tilt with all sails drawing,

Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, pawing.

"I cannot get it yet--not yet," he said;

"That leap and light, and sudden change to green,

And all the glittering from the sunset's red,

And the milky colours where the bursts have been,

And then the clipper striding like a queen

Over it all, all beauty to the crown.

I see it all, I cannot put it down.

"It's hard not to be able. There, look there!

I cannot get the movement nor the light;

Sometimes it almost makes a man despair

To try and try and never get it right.

Oh, if I could--oh, if I only might,

I wouldn't mind what hells I'd have to pass,

Not if the whole world called me fool and ass."

Down sank the crimson sun into the sea,

The wind cut chill at once, the west grew dun.

"Out sidelights!" called the mate. "Hi, where is he?"

The Boatswain called, "Out sidelights, damn you! Run!"

"He's always late or lazing," murmured one--

"The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon the tints

Of red and green passed on dark water-glints.

Darker it grew, still darker, and the stars

Burned golden, and the fiery fishes came.

The wire-note loudened from the straining spars;

The sheet-blocks clacked together always the same;

The rushing fishes streaked the seas with flame,

Racing the one speed noble as their own:

What unknown joy was in those fish unknown!

Just by the round-house door, as it grew dark,

The Boatswain caught the Dauber with, "Now, you;

Till now I've spared you, damn you! now you hark:

I've just had hell for what you didn't do;

I'll have you broke and sent among the crew

If you get me more trouble by a particle.

Don't you forget, you daubing, useless article!

"You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port Mahon!"

Then came the Cook's "Is that the Dauber there?

Why don't you leave them stinking paints alone?

They stink the house out, poisoning all the air.

Just take them out." "Where to?" "I don't care where.

I won't have stinking paint here." From their plates:

"That's right; wet paint breeds fever," growled his mates.

He took his still wet drawings from the berth

And climbed the ladder to the deck-house top;

Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth,

For two ship's boys were putting on the strop:

One, clambering up to let the skylight drop,

Saw him bend down beneath a boat and lay

His drawings there, till all were hid away,

And stand there silent, leaning on the boat,

Watching the constellations rise and burn,

Until the beauty took him by the throat,

So stately is their glittering overturn;

Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn

With banners rising and falling, and passing by

Over the empty silence of the sky.

The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails,

Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night,

The high trucks traced on heaven and left no trails;

The moonlight made the topsails almost white,

The passing sidelight seemed to drip green light.

And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright bows;

He sighed, "I'll never do't," and left the house.

"Now," said the reefer, "up! Come, Sam; come, Si,

Dauber's been hiding something." Up they slid,

Treading on naked tiptoe stealthily

To grope for treasure at the long-boat skid.

"Drawings!" said Sam. "Is this what Dauber hid?

Lord! I expected pudding, not this rot.

Still, come, we'll have some fun with what we've got."

They smeared the paint with turpentine until

They could remove with mess-clouts every trace

Of quick perception caught by patient skill,

And lines that had brought blood into his face.

They wiped the pigments off, and did erase,

With knives, all sticking clots. When they had done.

Under the boat they laid them every one.

All he had drawn since first he came to sea,

His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them there.

They chuckled then to think how mad he'd be

Finding his paintings vanished into air.

Eight bells were struck, and feet from everywhere

Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark;

The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red spark.

Names in the darkness passed and voices cried;

The red spark glowed and died, the faces seemed

As things remembered when a brain has died,

To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed.

Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed,

And on the clipper rushed with tossing mast,

A bath of flame broke round her as she passed.

The watch was set, the night came, and the men

Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep,

Bunched like the dead; still, like the dead, as when

Plague in a city leaves none even to weep.

The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep;

The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars:

South-west by south she staggered under the stars.

Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake

Thinking of his unfitness for the sea.

Each failure, each derision, each mistake,

There in the life not made for such as he;

A morning grim with trouble sure to be,

A noon of pain from failure, and a night

Bitter with men's contemning and despite.

This in the first beginning, the green leaf,

Still in the Trades before bad weather fell;

What harvest would he reap of hate and grief

When the loud Horn made every life a hell?

When the sick ship lay over, clanging her bell,

And no time came for painting or for drawing,

But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing?

Hell, he expected,--hell. His eyes grew blind;

The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled,

And then a gush of pity calmed his mind.

The cruel torment of his thought was muffled,

Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman shuffled,

Humming his song, and through the open door

A moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor.

The green bunk curtains moved, the brass rings clicked,

The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning,

The moonbeams' moving finger touched and picked,

And all the stars in all the sky were burning.

"This is the art I've come for, and am learning,

The sea and ships and men and travelling things.

It is most proud, whatever pain it brings."

He leaned upon his arm and watched the light

Sliding and fading to the steady roll;

This he would some day paint, the ship at night,

And sleeping seamen tired to the soul;

The space below the bunks as black as coal,

Gleams upon chests, upon the unlit lamp,

The ranging door hook, and the locker clamp.

This he would paint, and that, and all these scenes,

And proud ships carrying on, and men their minds,

And blues of rollers toppling into greens,

And shattering into white that bursts and blinds,

And scattering ships running erect like hinds,

And men in oilskins beating down a sail

High on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail.

With faces ducked down from the slanting drive

Of half-thawed hail mixed with half-frozen spray,

The roaring canvas like a thing alive,

Shaking the mast, knocking their hands away,

The foot-ropes jerking to the tug and sway,

The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims,

And icicles on the south-wester brims.

And sunnier scenes would grow under his brush,

The tropic dawn with all things dropping dew,

The darkness and the wonder and the hush,

The insensate grey before the marvel grew;

Then the veil lifted from the trembling blue,

The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the rose,

All the expanse of heaven a mind that glows.

He turned out of his bunk; the Cook still tossed,

One of the other two spoke in his sleep.

A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam crossed;

Outside there was the ship, the night, the deep.

"It is worth while," the youth said; "I will keep

To my resolve, I'll learn to paint all this.

My Lord, my God, how beautiful it is!"

Outside was the ship's rush to the wind's hurry,

A resonant wire-hum from every rope,

The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry,

The leaning masts in their majestic slope,

And all things strange with moonlight: filled with hope

By all that beauty going as man bade,

He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells were made.

II

Next day was Sunday, his free painting day,

While the fine weather held, from eight till eight.

He rose when called at five, and did array

The round-house gear, and set the kit-bags straight;

Then kneeling down, like housemaid at a grate,

He scrubbed the deck with sand until his knees

Were blue with dye from his wet dungarees.

Soon all was clean, his Sunday tasks were done;

His day was clear for painting as he chose.

The wetted decks were drying in the sun,

The men coiled up, or swabbed, or sought repose.

The drifts of silver arrows fell and rose

As flying fish took wing; the breakfast passed,

Wasting good time, but he was free at last.

Free for two hours and more to tingle deep,

Catching a likeness in a line or tint,

The canvas running up in a proud sweep,

Wind-wrinkled at the clews, and white like lint,

The glittering of the blue waves into glint;

Free to attempt it all, the proud ship's pawings,

The sea, the sky--he went to fetch his drawings.

Up to the deck-house top he quickly climbed,

He stooped to find them underneath the boat.

He found them all obliterated, slimed,

Blotted, erased, gone from him line and note.

They were all spoiled: a lump came in his throat,

Being vain of his attempts, and tender skinned--

Beneath the skylight watching reefers grinned.

He clambered down, holding the ruined things.

"Bosun," he called, "look here, did you do these:

Wipe off my paints and cut them into strings,

And smear them till you can't tell chalk from cheese?

Don't stare, but did you do it? Answer, please."

The Bosun turned: "I'll give you a thick ear!

Do it? I didn't. Get to hell from here!

"I touch your stinking daubs? The Dauber's daft."

A crowd was gathering now to hear the fun;

The reefers tumbled out, the men laid aft,

The Cook blinked, cleaning a mess kid in the sun.

"What's up with Dauber now?" said everyone.

"Someone has spoiled my drawings--look at this!"

"Well, that's a dirty trick, by God, it is!"

"It is," said Sam, "a low-down dirty trick,

To spoil a fellow's work in such a way,

And if you catch him, Dauber, punch him sick,

For he deserves it, be he who he may."

A seaman shook his old head wise and grey.

"It seems to me," he said, "who ain't no judge,

Them drawings look much better now they're smudge."

"Where were they, Dauber? On the deck-house? Where?"

"Under the long-boat, in a secret place."

"The blackguard must have seen you put them there.

He is a swine! I tell him to his face:

I didn't think we'd anyone so base."

"Nor I," said Dauber. "There was six weeks' time

Just wasted in these drawings: it's a crime!"

"Well, don't you say we did it," growled his mates,

"And as for crime, be damned! the things were smears--

Best overboard, like you, with shot for weights;

Thank God they're gone, and now go shake your ears."

The Dauber listened, very near to tears.

"Dauber, if I were you," said Sam again,

"I'd aft, and see the Captain and complain."

A sigh came from the assembled seamen there.

Would he be such a fool for their delight

As go to tell the Captain? Would he dare?

And would the thunder roar, the lightning smite?

There was the Captain come to take a sight,

Handling his sextant by the chart-house aft.

The Dauber turned, the seamen thought him daft.

The Captain took his sights--a mate below

Noted the times; they shouted to each other,

The Captain quick with "Stop," the answer slow,

Repeating slowly one height then another.

The swooping clipper stumbled through the smother,

The ladder brasses in the sunlight burned,

The Dauber waited till the Captain turned.

There stood the Dauber, humbled to the bone,

Waiting to speak. The Captain let him wait,

Glanced at the course, and called in even tone,

"What is the man there wanting, Mr. Mate?"

The logship clattered on the grating straight,

The reel rolled to the scuppers with a clatter,

The Mate came grim: "Well, Dauber, what's the matter?"

"Please, sir, they spoiled my drawings." "Who did?" "They."

"Who's they?" "I don't quite know, sir." "Don't quite know, sir?

Then why are you aft to talk about it, hey?

Whom d'you complain of?" "No one." "No one?" "No, sir."

"Well, then, go forward till you've found them. Go, sir.

If you complain of someone, then I'll see.

Now get to hell! and don't come bothering me."

"But, sir, they washed them off, and some they cut.

Look here, sir, how they spoiled them." "Never mind.

Go shove your head inside the scuttle butt,

And that will make you cooler. You will find

Nothing like water when you're mad and blind.

Where were the drawings? in your chest, or where?"

"Under the long-boat, sir; I put them there."

"Under the long-boat, hey? Now mind your tip.

I'll have the skids kept clear with nothing round them;

The long-boat ain't a store in this here ship.

Lucky for you it wasn't I who found them.

If I had seen them, Dauber, I'd have drowned them.

Now you be warned by this. I tell you plain--

Don't stow your brass-rags under boats again.

"Go forward to your berth." The Dauber turned.

The listeners down below them winked and smiled,

Knowing how red the Dauber's temples burned,

Having lost the case about his only child.

His work was done to nothing and defiled,

And there was no redress: the Captain's voice

Spoke, and called "Painter," making him rejoice.

The Captain and the Mate conversed together.

"Drawings, you tell me, Mister?" "Yes, sir; views:

Wiped off with turps, I gather that's his blether.

He says they're things he can't afford to lose.

He's Dick, who came to sea in dancing shoes,

And found the dance a bear dance. They were hidden

Under the long-boat's chocks, which I've forbidden."

"Wiped off with turps?" The Captain sucked his lip.

"Who did it, Mister?" "Reefers, I suppose;

Them devils do the most pranks in a ship;

The round-house might have done it, Cook or Bose."

"I can't take notice of it till he knows.

How does he do his work?" "Well, no offence;

He tries; he does his best. He's got no sense."

"Painter," the Captain called; the Dauber came.

"What's all this talk of drawings? What's the matter?"

"They spoiled my drawings, sir." "Well, who's to blame?

The long-boat's there for no one to get at her;

You broke the rules, and if you choose to scatter

Gear up and down where it's no right to be,

And suffer as result, don't come to me.

"Your place is in the round-house, and your gear

Belongs where you belong. Who spoiled your things?

Find out who spoiled your things and fetch him here."

"But, sir, they cut the canvas into strings."

"I want no argument nor questionings.

Go back where you belong and say no more,

And please remember that you're not on shore."

The Dauber touched his brow and slunk away--

They eyed his going with a bitter eye.

"Dauber," said Sam, "what did the Captain say?"

The Dauber drooped his head without reply.

"Go forward, Dauber, and enjoy your cry."

The Mate limped to the rail; like little feet

Over his head the drumming reef-points beat.

The Dauber reached the berth and entered in.

Much mockery followed after as he went,

And each face seemed to greet him with the grin

Of hounds hot following on a creature spent.

"Aren't you a fool?" each mocking visage meant.

"Who did it, Dauber? What did Captain say?

It is a crime, and there'll be hell to pay."

He bowed his head, the house was full of smoke;

The Sails was pointing shackles on his chest.

"Lord, Dauber, be a man and take a joke"--

He puffed his pipe--"and let the matter rest.

Spit brown, my son, and get a hairy breast;

Get shoulders on you at the crojick braces,

And let this painting business go to blazes.

"What good can painting do to anyone?

I don't say never do it; far from that--

No harm in sometimes painting just for fun.

Keep it for fun, and stick to what you're at.

Your job's to fill your bones up and get fat;

Rib up like Barney's bull, and thick your neck.

Throw paints to hell, boy; you belong on deck."

"That's right," said Chips; "it's downright good advice.

Painting's no good; what good can painting do

Up on a lower topsail stiff with ice,

With all your little fish-hooks frozen blue?

Painting won't help you at the weather clew,

Nor pass your gaskets for you, nor make sail.

Painting's a balmy job not worth a nail."

The Dauber did not answer; time was passing.

He pulled his easel out, his paints, his stool.

The wind was dropping, and the sea was glassing--

New realms of beauty waited for his rule;

The draught out of the crojick kept him cool.

He sat to paint, alone and melancholy.

"No turning fools," the Chips said, "from their folly."

He dipped his brush and tried to fix a line,

And then came peace, and gentle beauty came,

Turning his spirit's water into wine,

Lightening his darkness with a touch of flame:

O, joy of trying for beauty, ever the same,

You never fail, your comforts never end;

O, balm of this world's way; O, perfect friend!

III

They lost the Trades soon after; then came calm,

Light little gusts and rain, which soon increased

To glorious northers shouting out a psalm

At seeing the bright blue water silver fleeced;

Hornwards she rushed, trampling the seas to yeast.

There fell a rain-squall in a blind day's end

When for an hour the Dauber found a friend.

Out of the rain the voices called and passed,

The stay-sails flogged, the tackle yanked and shook.

Inside the harness-room a lantern cast

Light and wild shadows as it ranged its hook.

The watch on deck was gathered in the nook,

They had taken shelter in that secret place,

Wild light gave wild emotions to each face.

One beat the beef-cask, and the others sang

A song that had brought anchors out of seas

In ports where bells of Christians never rang,

Nor any sea mark blazed among the trees.

By forlorn swamps, in ice, by windy keys,

That song had sounded; now it shook the air

From these eight wanderers brought together there.

Under the poop-break, sheltering from the rain,

The Dauber sketched some likeness of the room,

A note to be a prompting to his brain,

A spark to make old memory reillume.

"Dauber," said someone near him in the gloom,

"How goes it, Dauber?" It was reefer Si.

"There's not much use in trying to keep dry."

They sat upon the sail-room doorway coaming,

The lad held forth like youth, the Dauber listened

To how the boy had had a taste for roaming,

And what the sea is said to be and isn't.

Where the dim lamplight fell the wet deck glistened.

Si said the Horn was still some weeks away,

"But tell me, Dauber, where d'you hail from? Eh?"

The rain blew past and let the stars appear;

The seas grew larger as the moonlight grew;

For half an hour the ring of heaven was clear,

Dusty with moonlight, grey rather than blue;

In that great moon the showing stars were few.

The sleepy time-boy's feet passed overhead.

"I come from out past Gloucester," Dauber said;

"Not far from Pauntley, if you know those parts;

The place is Spital Farm, near Silver Hill,

Above a trap-hatch where a mill-stream starts.

We had the mill once, but we've stopped the mill;

My dad and sister keep the farm on still.

We're only tenants, but we've rented there,

Father and son, for over eighty year.

"Father has worked the farm since grandfer went;

It means the world to him; I can't think why.

They bleed him to the last half-crown for rent,

And this and that have almost milked him dry.

The land's all starved; if he'd put money by,

And corn was up, and rent was down two-thirds....

But then they aren't, so what's the use of words.

"Yet still he couldn't bear to see it pass

To strangers, or to think a time would come

When other men than us would mow the grass,

And other names than ours have the home.

Some sorrows come from evil thought, but some

Comes when two men are near, and both are blind

To what is generous in the other's mind.

"I was the only boy, and father thought

I'd farm the Spital after he was dead,

And many a time he took me out and taught

About manures and seed-corn white and red,

And soils and hops, but I'd an empty head;

Harvest or seed, I would not do a turn--

I loathed the farm, I didn't want to learn.

"He did not mind at first, he thought it youth

Feeling the collar, and that I should change.

Then time gave him some inklings of the truth,

And that I loathed the farm, and wished to range.

Truth to a man of fifty's always strange;

It was most strange and terrible to him

That I, his heir, should be the devil's limb.

"Yet still he hoped the Lord might change my mind.

I'd see him bridle-in his wrath and hate,

And almost break my heart he was so kind,

Biting his lips sore with resolve to wait.

And then I'd try awhile; but it was Fate:

I didn't want to learn; the farm to me

Was mire and hopeless work and misery.

"Though there were things I loved about it, too--

The beasts, the apple-trees, and going haying.

And then I tried; but no, it wouldn't do,

The farm was prison, and my thoughts were straying.

And there'd come father, with his grey head, praying,

'O, my dear son, don't let the Spital pass;

It's my old home, boy, where your grandfer was.

"'And now you won't learn farming; you don't care.

The old home's nought to you. I've tried to teach you;

I've begged Almighty God, boy, all I dare,

To use His hand if word of mine won't reach you.

Boy, for your granfer's sake I do beseech you,

Don't let the Spital pass to strangers. Squire

Has said he'd give it you if we require.

"'Your mother used to walk here, boy, with me;

It was her favourite walk down to the mill;

And there we'd talk how little death would be,

Knowing our work was going on here still.

You've got the brains, you only want the will--

Don't disappoint your mother and your father.

I'll give you time to travel, if you'd rather.'

"But, no, I'd wander up the brooks to read.

Then sister Jane would start with nagging tongue,

Saying my sin made father's heart to bleed,

And how she feared she'd live to see me hung.

And then she'd read me bits from Dr. Young.

And when we three would sit to supper, Jane

Would fillip dad till dad began again.

"'I've been here all my life, boy. I was born

Up in the room above--looks on the mead.

I never thought you'd cockle my clean corn,

And leave the old home to a stranger's seed.

Father and I have made here 'thout a weed:

We've give our lives to make that. Eighty years.

And now I go down to the grave in tears.'

"And then I'd get ashamed and take off coat,

And work maybe a week, ploughing and sowing

And then I'd creep away and sail my boat,

Or watch the water when the mill was going.

That's my delight--to be near water flowing,

Dabbling or sailing boats or jumping stanks,

Or finding moorhens' nests along the banks.

"And one day father found a ship I'd built;

He took the cart-whip to me over that,

And I, half mad with pain, and sick with guilt,

Went up and hid in what we called the flat,

A dusty hole given over to the cat.

She kittened there; the kittens had worn paths

Among the cobwebs, dust, and broken laths.

"And putting down my hand between the beams

I felt a leathery thing, and pulled it clear:

A book with white cocoons stuck in the seams.

Where spiders had had nests for many a year.

It was my mother's sketch-book; hid, I fear,

Lest dad should ever see it. Mother's life

Was not her own while she was father's wife.

"There were her drawings, dated, pencilled faint.

March was the last one, eighteen eighty-three,

Unfinished that, for tears had smeared the paint.

The rest was landscape, not yet brought to be.

That was a holy afternoon to me;

That book a sacred book; the flat a place

Where I could meet my mother face to face.

"She had found peace of spirit, mother had,

Drawing the landscape from the attic there--

Heart-broken, often, after rows with dad,

Hid like a wild thing in a secret lair.

That rotting sketch-book showed me how and where

I, too, could get away; and then I knew

That drawing was the work I longed to do.

"Drawing became my life. I drew, I toiled,

And every penny I could get I spent

On paints and artist's matters, which I spoiled

Up in the attic to my heart's content,

Till one day father asked me what I meant;

The time had come, he said, to make an end.

Now it must finish: what did I intend?

"Either I took to farming, like his son,

In which case he would teach me, early and late

(Provided that my daubing mood was done),

Or I must go: it must be settled straight.

If I refused to farm, there was the gate.

I was to choose, his patience was all gone,

The present state of things could not go on.

"Sister was there; she eyed me while he spoke.

The kitchen clock ran down and struck the hour,

And something told me father's heart was broke,

For all he stood so set and looked so sour.

Jane took a duster, and began to scour

A pewter on the dresser; she was crying.

I stood stock still a long time, not replying.

"Dad waited, then he snorted and turned round.

'Well, think of it,' he said. He left the room,

His boots went clop along the stony ground

Out to the orchard and the apple-bloom.

A cloud came past the sun and made a gloom;

I swallowed with dry lips, then sister turned.

She was dead white but for her eyes that burned.

"'You're breaking father's heart, Joe,' she began;

'It's not as if----' she checked, in too much pain.

'O, Joe, don't help to kill so fine a man;

You're giving him our mother over again.

It's wearing him to death, Joe, heart and brain;

You know what store he sets on leaving this

To (it's too cruel)--to a son of his.

"'Yet you go painting all the day. O, Joe,

Couldn't you make an effort? Can't you see

What folly it is of yours? It's not as though

You are a genius or could ever be.

O, Joe, for father's sake, if not for me,

Give up this craze for painting, and be wise

And work with father, where your duty lies.'

"'It goes too deep,' I said; 'I loathe the farm;

I couldn't help, even if I'd the mind.

Even if I helped, I'd only do him harm;

Father would see it, if he were not blind.

I was not built to farm, as he would find.

O, Jane, it's bitter hard to stand alone

And spoil my father's life or spoil my own.'

"'Spoil both,' she said, 'the way you're shaping now.

You're only a boy not knowing your own good.

Where will you go, suppose you leave here? How

Do you propose to earn your daily food?

Draw? Daub the pavements? There's a feckless brood

Goes to the devil daily, Joe, in cities

Only from thinking how divine their wit is.

"'Clouds are they, without water, carried away.

And you'll be one of them, the way you're going,

Daubing at silly pictures all the day,

And praised by silly fools who're always blowing.

And you choose this when you might go a-sowing,

Casting the good corn into chosen mould

That shall in time bring forth a hundred-fold.'

"So we went on, but in the end it ended.

I felt I'd done a murder; I felt sick.

There's much in human minds cannot be mended,

And that, not I, played dad a cruel trick.

There was one mercy: that it ended quick.

I went to join my mother's brother: he

Lived down the Severn. He was kind to me.

"And there I learned house-painting for a living.

I'd have been happy there, but that I knew

I'd sinned before my father past forgiving,

And that they sat at home, that silent two,

Wearing the fire out and the evening through,

Silent, defeated, broken, in despair,

My plate unset, my name gone, and my chair.

"I saw all that; and sister Jane came white--

White as a ghost, with fiery, weeping eyes.

I saw her all day long and half the night,

Bitter as gall, and passionate and wise.

'Joe, you have killed your father: there he lies.

You have done your work--you with our mother's ways.'

She said it plain, and then her eyes would blaze.

"And then one day I had a job to do

Down below bridge, by where the docks begin,

And there I saw a clipper towing through,

Up from the sea that morning, entering in.

Raked to the nines she was, lofty and thin,

Her ensign ruffling red, her bunts in pile,

Beauty and strength together, wonder, style.

"She docked close to the gates, and there she lay

Over the water from me, well in sight;

And as I worked I watched her all the day,

Finding her beauty ever fresh delight.

Her house-flag was bright green with strips of white;

High in the sunny air it rose to shake

Above the skysail poles' most splendid rake.

"And when I felt unhappy I would look

Over the river at her; and her pride,

So calm, so quiet, came as a rebuke

To half the passionate pathways which I tried;

And though the autumn ran its term and died,

And winter fell and cold December came,

She was still splendid there, and still the same.

"Then on a day she sailed; but when she went

My mind was clear on what I had to try:

To see the sea and ships, and what they meant,

That was the thing I longed to do; so I

Drew and worked hard, and studied and put by,

And thought of nothing else but that one end,

But let all else go hang--love, money, friend.

"And now I've shipped as Dauber I've begun.

It was hard work to find a dauber's berth;

I hadn't any friends to find me one,

Only my skill, for what it may be worth;

But I'm at sea now, going about the earth,

And when the ship's paid off, when we return,

I'll join some Paris studio and learn."

He stopped, the air came moist, Si did not speak;

The Dauber turned his eyes to where he sat,

Pressing the sail-room hinges with his cheek,

His face half covered with a drooping hat.

Huge dewdrops from the stay-sails dropped and spat.

Si did not stir, the Dauber touched his sleeve;

A little birdlike noise came from a sheave.

Si was asleep, sleeping a calm deep sleep,

Still as a warden of the Egyptian dead

In some old haunted temple buried deep

Under the desert sand, sterile and red.

The Dauber shook his arm; Si jumped and said,

"Good yarn, I swear! I say, you have a brain--

Was that eight bells that went?" He slept again.

Then waking up, "I've had a nap," he cried.

"Was that one bell? What, Dauber, you still here?"

"Si there?" the Mate's voice called. "Sir," he replied.

The order made the lad's thick vision clear;

A something in the Mate's voice made him fear.

"Si," said the Mate, "I hear you've made a friend--

Dauber, in short. That friendship's got to end.

"You're a young gentleman. Your place aboard

Is with the gentlemen abaft the mast.

You're learning to command; you can't afford

To yarn with any man. But there ... it's past.

You've done it once; let this time be the last.

The Dauber's place is forward. Do it again,

I'll put you bunking forward with the men.

"Dismiss." Si went, but Sam, beside the Mate,

Timekeeper there, walked with him to the rail

And whispered him the menace of "You wait"--

Words which have turned full many a reefer pale.

The watch was changed; the watch on deck trimmed sail.

Sam, going below, called all the reefers down,

Sat in his bunk and eyed them with a frown.

"Si here," he said, "has soiled the half-deck's name

Talking to Dauber--Dauber, the ship's clout.

A reefer takes the Dauber for a flame,

The half-deck take the round-house walking out.

He's soiled the half-deck's honour; now, no doubt,

The Bosun and his mates will come here sneaking,

Asking for smokes, or blocking gangways speaking.

"I'm not a vain man, given to blow or boast;

I'm not a proud man, but I truly feel

That while I've bossed this mess and ruled this roast

I've kept this hooker's half-deck damned genteel.

Si must ask pardon, or be made to squeal.

Down on your knees, dog; them we love we chasten.

Jao, pasea, my son--in English, Hasten."

Si begged for pardon, meekly kneeling down

Before the reefer's mess assembled grim.

The lamp above them smoked the glass all brown;

Beyond the door the dripping sails were dim.

The Dauber passed the door; none spoke to him.

He sought his berth and slept, or, waking, heard

Rain on the deck-house--rain, no other word.

IV

Our of the air a time of quiet came,

Calm fell upon the heaven like a drouth;

The brass sky watched the brassy water flame.

Drowsed as a snail the clipper loitered south

Slowly, with no white bone across her mouth;

No rushing glory, like a queen made bold,

The Dauber strove to draw her as she rolled.

There the four leaning spires of canvas rose,

Royals and skysails lifting, gently lifting,

White like the brightness that a great fish blows

When billows are at peace and ships are drifting;

With mighty jerks that set the shadows shifting,

The courses tugged their tethers: a blue haze

Drifted like ghosts of flocks come down to graze.

There the great skyline made her perfect round,

Notched now and then by the sea's deeper blue;

A smoke-smutch marked a steamer homeward bound,

The haze wrought all things to intenser hue.

In tingling impotence the Dauber drew

As all men draw, keen to the shaken soul

To give a hint that might suggest the whole.

A naked seaman washing a red shirt

Sat at a tub whistling between his teeth;

Complaining blocks quavered like something hurt.

A sailor cut an old boot for a sheath,

The ship bowed to her shadow-ship beneath,

And little slaps of spray came at the roll

On to the deck-planks from the scupper-hole.

He watched it, painting patiently, as paints,

With eyes that pierce behind the blue sky's veil,

The Benedictine in a Book of Saints

Watching the passing of the Holy Grail;

The green dish dripping blood, the trump, the hail,

The spears that pass, the memory and the passion,

The beauty moving under this world's fashion.

But as he painted, slowly, man by man,

The seamen gathered near; the Bosun stood

Behind him, jeering; then the Sails began

Sniggering with comment that it was not good.

Chips flicked his sketch with little scraps of wood,

Saying, "That hit the top-knot," every time.

Cook mocked, "My lovely drawings; it's a crime."

Slowly the men came nearer, till a crowd

Stood at his elbow, muttering as he drew;

The Bosun, turning to them, spoke aloud,

"This is the ship that never got there. You

Look at her here, what Dauber's trying to do.

Look at her! lummy, like a Christmas-tree.

That thing's a ship; he calls this painting. See?"

Seeing the crowd, the Mate came forward; then

"Sir," said the Bosun, "come and see the sight!

Here's Dauber makes a circus for the men.

He calls this thing a ship--this hell's delight!"

"Man," said the Mate, "you'll never get her right

Daubing like that. Look here!" He took a brush.

"Now, Dauber, watch; I'll put you to the blush.

"Look here. Look there. Now watch this ship of mine."

He drew her swiftly from a memory stored.

"God, sir," the Bosun said, "you do her fine!"

"Ay," said the Mate, "I do so, by the Lord!

I'll paint a ship with any man aboard."

They hung about his sketch like beasts at bait.

"There now, I taught him painting," said the Mate.

When he had gone, the gathered men dispersed;

Yet two or three still lingered to dispute

What errors made the Dauber's work the worst.

They probed his want of knowledge to the root.

"Bei Gott!" they swore, "der Dauber cannot do 't;

He haf no knolich how to put der pense.

Der Mate's is goot. Der Dauber haf no sense."

"You hear?" the Bosun cried, "you cannot do it!"

"A gospel truth," the Cook said, "true as hell!

And wisdom, Dauber, if you only knew it;

A five year boy would do a ship as well."

"If that's the kind of thing you hope to sell,

God help you," echoed Chips. "I tell you true,

The job's beyond you, Dauber; drop it, do.

"Drop it, in God's name drop it, and have done!

You see you cannot do it. Here's the Mate

Paints you to frazzles before everyone;

Paints you a dandy clipper while you wait.

While you, Lord love us, daub. I tell you straight,

We've had enough of daubing; drop it; quit.

You cannot paint, so make an end of it."

"That's sense," said all; "you cannot, why pretend?"

The Dauber rose and put his easel by.

"You've said enough," he said, "now let it end.

Who cares how bad my painting may be? I

Mean to go on, and, if I fail, to try.

However much I miss of my intent,

If I have done my best I'll be content.

"You cannot understand that. Let it be.

You cannot understand, nor know, nor share.

This is a matter touching only me;

My sketch may be a daub, for aught I care.

You may be right. But even if you were,

Your mocking should not stop this work of mine;

Rot though it be, its prompting is divine.

"You cannot understand that--you, and you,

And you, you Bosun. You can stand and jeer,

That is the task your spirit fits you to,

That you can understand and hold most dear.

Grin, then, like collars, ear to donkey ear,

But let me daub. Try, you, to understand

Which task will bear the light best on God's hand."

V

The wester came as steady as the Trades;

Brightly it blew, and still the ship did shoulder

The brilliance of the water's white cockades

Into the milky green of smoky smoulder.

The sky grew bluer and the air grew colder.

Southward she thundered while the westers held,

Proud, with taut bridles, pawing, but compelled.

And still the Dauber strove, though all men mocked,

To draw the splendour of the passing thing,

And deep inside his heart a something locked,

Long pricking in him, now began to sting--

A fear of the disasters storm might bring;

His rank as painter would be ended then--

He would keep watch and watch like other men.

And go aloft with them to man the yard

When the great ship was rolling scuppers under,

Burying her snout all round the compass card,

While the green water struck at her and stunned her;

When the lee-rigging slacked, when one long thunder

Boomed from the black to windward, when the sail

Booted and spurred the devil in the gale

For him to ride on men: that was the time

The Dauber dreaded; then the test would come,

When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks with slime,

And all the air was blind with flying scum;

When the drenched sails were furled, when the fierce hum

In weather riggings died into the roar

Of God's eternal never tamed by shore.

Once in the passage he had worked aloft,

Shifting her suits one summer afternoon,

In the bright Trade wind, when the wind was soft,

Shaking the points, making the tackle croon.

But that was child's play to the future: soon

He would be ordered up when sails and spars

Were flying and going mad among the stars.

He had been scared that first time, daunted, thrilled,

Not by the height so much as by the size,

And then the danger to the man unskilled

In standing on a rope that runs through eyes.

"But in a storm," he thought, "the yards will rise

And roll together down, and snap their gear!"

The sweat came cold upon his palms for fear.

Sometimes in Gloucester he had felt a pang

Swinging below the house-eaves on a stage.

But stages carry rails; here he would hang

Upon a jerking rope in a storm's rage,

Ducked that the sheltering oilskin might assuage

The beating of the storm, clutching the jack,

Beating the sail, and being beaten back.

Drenched, frozen, gasping, blinded, beaten dumb,

High in the night, reeling great blinding arcs

As the ship rolled, his chappy fingers numb,

The deck below a narrow blur of marks,

The sea a welter of whiteness shot with sparks,

Now snapping up in bursts, now dying away,

Salting the horizontal snow with spray.

A hundred and fifty feet above the deck,

And there, while the ship rolls, boldly to sit

Upon a foot-rope moving, jerk and check,

While half a dozen seamen work on it;

Held by one hand, straining, by strength and wit

To toss a gasket's coil around the yard,

How could he compass that when blowing hard?

And if he failed in any least degree,

Or faltered for an instant, or showed slack,

He might go drown himself within the sea,

And add a bubble to the clipper's track.

He had signed his name, there was no turning back,

No pardon for default--this must be done.

One iron rule at sea binds everyone.

Till now he had been treated with contempt

As neither man nor thing, a creature borne

On the ship's articles, but left exempt

From all the seamen's life except their scorn.

But he would rank as seaman off the Horn,

Work as a seaman, and be kept or cast

By standards set for men before the mast.

Even now they shifted suits of sails; they bent

The storm-suit ready for the expected time;

The mighty wester that the Plate had lent

Had brought them far into the wintry clime.

At dawn, out of the shadow, there was rime,

The dim Magellan Clouds were frosty clear,

The wind had edge, the testing-time was near.

And then he wondered if the tales were lies

Told by old hands to terrify the new,

For, since the ship left England, only twice

Had there been need to start a sheet or clew,

Then only royals, for an hour or two,

And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold.

What were these gales of which the stories told?

The thought went by. He had heard the Bosun tell

Too often, and too fiercely, not to know

That being off the Horn in June is hell:

Hell of continual toil in ice and snow,

Frostbitten hell in which the westers blow

Shrieking for days on end, in which the seas

Gulf the starved seamen till their marrows freeze.

Such was the weather he might look to find,

Such was the work expected: there remained

Firmly to set his teeth, resolve his mind,

And be the first, however much it pained,

And bring his honour round the Horn unstained,

And win his mates' respect; and thence, untainted,

Be ranked as man however much he painted.

He drew deep breath; a gantline swayed aloft

A lower topsail, hard with rope and leather,

Such as men's frozen fingers fight with oft

Below the Ramirez in Cape Horn weather.

The arms upon the yard hove all together,

Lighting the head along; a thought occurred

Within the painter's brain like a bright bird:

That this, and so much like it, of man's toil,

Compassed by naked manhood in strange places,

Was all heroic, but outside the coil

Within which modern art gleams or grimaces;

That if he drew that line of sailor's faces

Sweating the sail, their passionate play and change,

It would be new, and wonderful, and strange.

That that was what his work meant; it would be

A training in new vision--a revealing

Of passionate men in battle with the sea,

High on an unseen stage, shaking and reeling;

And men through him would understand their feeling,

Their might, their misery, their tragic power,

And all by suffering pain a little hour;

High on the yard with them, feeling their pain,

Battling with them; and it had not been done.

He was a door to new worlds in the brain,

A window opening letting in the sun,

A voice saying, "Thus is bread fetched and ports won,

And life lived out at sea where men exist

Solely by man's strong brain and sturdy wrist."

So he decided, as he cleaned his brasses,

Hearing without, aloft, the curse, the shout

Where the taut gantline passes and repasses,

Heaving new topsails to be lighted out.

It was most proud, however self might doubt,

To share man's tragic toil and paint it true.

He took the offered Fate: this he would do.

That night the snow fell between six and seven,

A little feathery fall so light, so dry--

An aimless dust out of a confused heaven,

Upon an air no steadier than a sigh;

The powder dusted down and wandered by

So purposeless, so many, and so cold,

Then died, and the wind ceased and the ship rolled.

Rolled till she clanged--rolled till the brain was tired,

Marking the acme of the heaves, the pause

While the sea-beauty rested and respired,

Drinking great draughts of roller at her hawse.

Flutters of snow came aimless upon flaws.

"Lock up your paints," the Mate said, speaking light:

"This is the Horn; you'll join my watch to-night!"

VI

All through the windless night the clipper rolled

In a great swell with oily gradual heaves

Which rolled her down until her time-bells tolled,

Clang, and the weltering water moaned like beeves.

The thundering rattle of slatting shook the sheaves,

Startles of water made the swing ports gush,

The sea was moaning and sighing and saying "Hush!"

It was all black and starless. Peering down

Into the water, trying to pierce the gloom,

One saw a dim, smooth, oily glitter of brown

Heaving and dying away and leaving room

For yet another. Like the march of doom

Came those great powers of marching silences;

Then fog came down, dead-cold, and hid the seas.

They set the Dauber to the foghorn. There

He stood upon the poop, making to sound

Out of the pump the sailor's nasal blare,

Listening lest ice should make the note resound.

She bayed there like a solitary hound

Lost in a covert; all the watch she bayed.

The fog, come closelier down, no answer made.

Denser it grew, until the ship was lost.

The elemental hid her; she was merged

In mufflings of dark death, like a man's ghost,

New to the change of death, yet thither urged.

Then from the hidden waters something surged--

Mournful, despairing, great, greater than speech,

A noise like one slow wave on a still beach.

Mournful, and then again mournful, and still

Out of the night that mighty voice arose;

The Dauber at his foghorn felt the thrill.

Who rode that desolate sea? What forms were those?

Mournful, from things defeated, in the throes

Of memory of some conquered hunting-ground,

Out of the night of death arose the sound.

"Whales!" said the Mate. They stayed there all night long

Answering the horn. Out of the night they spoke,

Defeated creatures who had suffered wrong,

But were still noble underneath the stroke.

They filled the darkness when the Dauber woke;

The men came peering to the rail to hear,

And the sea sighed, and the fog rose up sheer.

A wall of nothing at the world's last edge,

Where no life came except defeated life.

The Dauber felt shut in within a hedge,

Behind which form was hidden and thought was rife,

And that a blinding flash, a thrust, a knife

Would sweep the hedge away and make all plain,

Brilliant beyond all words, blinding the brain.

So the night passed, but then no morning broke--

Only a something showed that night was dead.

A sea-bird, cackling like a devil, spoke,

And the fog drew away and hung like lead.

Like mighty cliffs it shaped, sullen and red;

Like glowering gods at watch it did appear,

And sometimes drew away, and then drew near.

Like islands, and like chasms, and like hell,

But always mighty and red, gloomy and ruddy,

Shutting the visible sea in like a well;

Slow heaving in vast ripples, blank and muddy,

Where the sun should have risen it streaked bloody.

The day was still-born; all the sea-fowl scattering

Splashed the still water, mewing, hovering, clattering.

Then Polar snow came down little and light,

Till all the sky was hidden by the small,

Most multitudinous drift of dirty white

Tumbling and wavering down and covering all--

Covering the sky, the sea, the clipper tall,

Furring the ropes with white, casing the mast,

Coming on no known air, but blowing past.

And all the air seemed full of gradual moan,

As though in those cloud-chasms the horns were blowing

The mort for gods cast out and overthrown,

Or for the eyeless sun plucked out and going.

Slow the low gradual moan came in the snowing;

The Dauber felt the prelude had begun.

The snowstorm fluttered by; he saw the sun

Show and pass by, gleam from one towering prison

Into another, vaster and more grim,

Which in dull crags of darkness had arisen

To muffle-to a final door on him.

The gods upon the dull crags lowered dim,

The pigeons chattered, quarrelling in the track.

In the south-west the dimness dulled to black.

Then came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!"

The Dauber knew its meaning; it was come:

Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck,

And crumples steel and smites the strong man dumb.

Down clattered flying kites and staysails: some

Sang out in quick, high calls: the fair-leads skirled,

And from the south-west came the end of the world.

"Caught in her ball-dress," said the Bosun, hauling

"Lee-ay, lee-ay!" quick, high, came the men's call;

It was all wallop of sails and startled calling.

"Let fly!" "Let go!" "Clew up!" and "Let go all!"

"Now up and make them fast!" "Here, give us a haul!"

"Now up and stow them! Quick! By God! we're done!"

The blackness crunched all memory of the sun.

"Up!" said the Mate. "Mizen top-gallants. Hurry!"

The Dauber ran, the others ran, the sails

Slatted and shook; out of the black a flurry

Whirled in fine lines, tattering the edge to trails.

Painting and art and England were old tales

Told in some other life to that pale man,

Who struggled with white fear and gulped and ran.

He struck a ringbolt in his haste and fell--

Rose, sick with pain, half-lamed in his left knee;

He reached the shrouds where clambering men pell-mell

Hustled each other up and cursed him; he

Hurried aloft with them: then from the sea

Came a cold, sudden breath that made the hair

Stiff on the neck, as though Death whispered there.

A man below him punched him in the side.

"Get up, you Dauber, or let me get past."

He saw the belly of the skysail skied,

Gulped, and clutched tight, and tried to go more fast.

Sometimes he missed his ratline and was grassed,

Scraped his shin raw against the rigid line.

The clamberers reached the futtock-shrouds' incline.

Cursing they came; one, kicking out behind,

Kicked Dauber in the mouth, and one below

Punched at his calves; the futtock-shrouds inclined

It was a perilous path for one to go.

"Up, Dauber, up!" A curse followed a blow.

He reached the top and gasped, then on, then on.

And one voice yelled "Let go!" and one "All gone!"

Fierce clamberers, some in oilskins, some in rags,

Hustling and hurrying up, up the steep stairs.

Before the windless sails were blown to flags,

And whirled like dirty birds athwart great airs,

Ten men in all, to get this mast of theirs

Snugged to the gale in time. "Up! Damn you, run!"

The mizen topmast head was safely won.

"Lay out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid

Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and feeling

Sick at the mighty space of air displayed

Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling.

A giddy fear was on him; he was reeling.

He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack.

A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his back.

The yard was shaking, for a brace was loose.

He felt that he would fall; he clutched, he bent,

Clammy with natural terror to the shoes

While idiotic promptings came and went.

Snow fluttered on a wind-flaw and was spent;

He saw the water darken. Someone yelled,

"Frap it; don't stay to furl! Hold on!" He held.

Darkness came down--half darkness--in a whirl;

The sky went out, the waters disappeared.

He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl

The ship upon her side. The darkness speared

At her with wind; she staggered, she careered,

Then down she lay. The Dauber felt her go;

He saw his yard tilt downwards. Then the snow

Whirled all about--dense, multitudinous, cold--

Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek,

Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, took hold,

Flattening the flying drift against the cheek.

The yards buckled and bent, man could not speak.

The ship lay on her broadside; the wind's sound

Had devilish malice at having got her downed.

* * * * *

How long the gale had blown he could not tell,

Only the world had changed, his life had died.

A moment now was everlasting hell.

Nature an onslaught from the weather side,

A withering rush of death, a frost that cried,

Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail

Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail.

"Cut!" yelled his mate. He looked--the sail was gone,

Blown into rags in the first furious squall;

The tatters drummed the devil's tattoo. On

The buckling yard a block thumped like a mall.

The ship lay--the sea smote her, the wind's bawl

Came, "loo, loo, loo!" The devil cried his hounds

On to the poor spent stag strayed in his bounds.

"Cut! Ease her!" yelled his mate; the Dauber heard.

His mate wormed up the tilted yard and slashed,

A rag of canvas skimmed like a darting bird.

The snow whirled, the ship bowed to it, the gear lashed,

The sea-tops were cut off and flung down smashed;

Tatters of shouts were flung, the rags of yells--

And clang, clang, clang, below beat the two bells.

"O God!" the Dauber moaned. A roaring rang,

Blasting the royals like a cannonade;

The backstays parted with a cracking clang,

The upper spars were snapped like twigs decayed--

Snapped at their heels, their jagged splinters splayed,

Like white and ghastly hair erect with fear.

The Mate yelled, "Gone, by God, and pitched them clear!"

"Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!"

The Dauber followed where he led: below

He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck

Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.

He saw the streamers of the rigging blow

Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast,

Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast

Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice,

Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage,

An utter bridle given to utter vice,

Limitless power mad with endless rage

Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age.

He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail,

Thinking that comfort was a fairy-tale

Told long ago--long, long ago--long since

Heard of in other lives--imagined, dreamed--

There where the basest beggar was a prince

To him in torment where the tempest screamed,

Comfort and warmth and ease no longer seemed

Things that a man could know: soul, body, brain,

Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain.

"Leave that!" the Bosun shouted; "Crojick save!"

The splitting crojick, not yet gone to rags,

Thundered below, beating till something gave,

Bellying between its buntlines into bags.

Some birds were blown past, shrieking: dark, like shags,

Their backs seemed, looking down. "Leu, leu!" they cried.

The ship lay, the seas thumped her; she had died.

They reached the crojick yard, which buckled, buckled

Like a thin whalebone to the topsail's strain.

They laid upon the yard and heaved and knuckled,

Pounding the sail, which jangled and leapt again.

It was quite hard with ice, its rope like chain,

Its strength like seven devils; it shook the mast.

They cursed and toiled and froze: a long time passed.

Two hours passed, then a dim lightening came.

Those frozen ones upon the yard could see

The mainsail and the foresail still the same,

Still battling with the hands and blowing free,

Rags tattered where the staysails used to be.

The lower topsails stood; the ship's lee deck

Seethed with four feet of water filled with wreck.

An hour more went by; the Dauber lost

All sense of hands and feet, all sense of all

But of a wind that cut him to the ghost,

And of a frozen fold he had to haul,

Of heavens that fell and never ceased to fall,

And ran in smoky snatches along the sea,

Leaping from crest to wave-crest, yelling. He

Lost sense of time; no bells went, but he felt

Ages go over him. At last, at last

They frapped the cringled crojick's icy pelt;

In frozen bulge and bunt they made it fast.

Then, scarcely live, they laid in to the mast.

The Captain's speaking trumpet gave a blare,

"Make fast the topsail, Mister, while you're there."

Some seamen cursed, but up they had to go--

Up to the topsail yard to spend an hour

Stowing a topsail in a blinding snow,

Which made the strongest man among them cower.

More men came up, the fresh hands gave them power,

They stowed the sail; then with a rattle of chain

One half the crojick burst its bonds again.

* * * * *

They stowed the sail, frapping it round with rope,

Leaving no surface for the wind, no fold,

Then down the weather shrouds, half dead, they grope;

That struggle with the sail had made them old.

They wondered if the crojick furl would hold.

"Lucky," said one, "it didn't spring the spar."

"Lucky!" the Bosun said, "Lucky! We are!

She came within two shakes of turning top

Or stripping all her shroud-screws, that first quiff.

Now fish those wash-deck buckets out of the slop.

Here's Dauber says he doesn't like Cape Stiff.

This isn't wind, man, this is only a whiff.

Hold on, all hands, hold on!" a sea, half seen,

Paused, mounted, burst, and filled the main-deck green.

The Dauber felt a mountain of water fall.

It covered him deep, deep, he felt it fill,

Over his head, the deck, the fife-rails, all,

Quieting the ship, she trembled and lay still.

Then with a rush and shatter and clanging shrill

Over she went; he saw the water cream

Over the bitts; he saw the half-deck stream.

Then in the rush he swirled, over she went;

Her lee-rail dipped, he struck, and something gave;

His legs went through a port as the roll spent;

She paused, then rolled, and back the water drave.

He drifted with it as a part of the wave,

Drowning, half-stunned, exhausted, partly frozen,

He struck the booby hatchway; then the Bosun

Leaped, seeing his chance, before the next sea burst,

And caught him as he drifted, seized him, held,

Up-ended him against the bitts, and cursed.

"This ain't the George's Swimming Baths," he yelled;

"Keep on your feet!" Another grey-back felled

The two together, and the Bose, half-blind,

Spat: "One's a joke," he cursed, "but two's unkind."

"Now, damn it, Dauber!" said the Mate. "Look out,

Or you'll be over the side!" The water freed;

Each clanging freeing-port became a spout.

The men cleared up the decks as there was need.

The Dauber's head was cut, he felt it bleed

Into his oilskins as he clutched and coiled.

Water and sky were devils' brews which boiled,

Boiled, shrieked, and glowered; but the ship was saved.

Snugged safely down, though fourteen sails were split.

Out of the dark a fiercer fury raved.

The grey-backs died and mounted, each crest lit

With a white toppling gleam that hissed from it

And slid, or leaped, or ran with whirls of cloud,

Mad with inhuman life that shrieked aloud.

The watch was called; Dauber might go below.

"Splice the main brace!" the Mate called. All laid aft

To get a gulp of momentary glow

As some reward for having saved the craft.

The steward ladled mugs, from which each quaff'd

Whisky, with water, sugar, and lime-juice, hot,

A quarter of a pint each made the tot.

Beside the lamp-room door the steward stood

Ladling it out, and each man came in turn,

Tipped his sou'-wester, drank it, grunted "Good!"

And shambled forward, letting it slowly burn:

When all were gone the Dauber lagged astern,

Torn by his frozen body's lust for heat,

The liquor's pleasant smell, so warm, so sweet,

And by a promise long since made at home

Never to taste strong liquor. Now he knew

The worth of liquor; now he wanted some.

His frozen body urged him to the brew;

Yet it seemed wrong, an evil thing to do

To break that promise. "Dauber," said the Mate,

"Drink, and turn in, man; why the hell d'ye wait?"

"Please, sir, I'm temperance." "Temperance are you, hey?

That's all the more for me! So you're for slops?

I thought you'd had enough slops for today.

Go to your bunk and ease her when she drops.

And--damme, steward! you brew with too much hops!

Stir up the sugar, man!--and tell your girl

How kind the Mate was teaching you to furl."

Then the Mate drank the remnants, six men's share,

And ramped into his cabin, where he stripped

And danced unclad, and was uproarious there.

In waltzes with the cabin cat he tripped,

Singing in tenor clear that he was pipped--

That "he who strove the tempest to disarm,

Must never first embrail the lee yardarm,"

And that his name was Ginger. Dauber crept

Back to the round-house, gripping by the rail.

The wind howled by; the passionate water leapt;

The night was all one roaring with the gale.

Then at the door he stopped, uttering a wail;

His hands were perished numb and blue as veins,

He could not turn the knob for both the Spains.

A hand came shuffling aft, dodging the seas,

Singing "her nut-brown hair" between his teeth;

Taking the ocean's tumult at his ease

Even when the wash about his thighs did seethe.

His soul was happy in its happy sheath;

"What, Dauber, won't it open? Fingers cold?

You'll talk of this time, Dauber, when you're old."

He flung the door half open, and a sea

Washed them both in, over the splashboard, down;

"You' silly, salt miscarriage!" sputtered he.

"Dauber, pull out the plug before we drown!

That's spoiled my laces and my velvet gown.

Where is the plug?" Groping in pitch dark water,

He sang between his teeth "The Farmer's Daughter."

It was pitch dark within there; at each roll

The chests slid to the slant; the water rushed,

Making full many a clanging tin pan bowl

Into the black below-bunks as it gushed.

The dog-tired men slept through it; they were hushed.

The water drained, and then with matches damp

The man struck heads off till he lit the lamp.

"Thank you," the Dauber said; the seaman grinned.

"This is your first foul weather?" "Yes." "I thought

Up on the yard you hadn't seen much wind.

Them's rotten sea-boots, Dauber, that you brought.

Now I must cut on deck before I'm caught."

He went; the lamp-flame smoked; he slammed the door;

A film of water loitered across the floor.

The Dauber watched it come and watched it go;

He had had revelation of the lies

Cloaking the truth men never choose to know;

He could bear witness now and cleanse their eyes.

He had beheld in suffering; he was wise;

This was the sea, this searcher of the soul--

This never-dying shriek fresh from the Pole.

He shook with cold; his hands could not undo

His oilskin buttons, so he shook and sat,

Watching his dirty fingers, dirty blue,

Hearing without the hammering tackle slat,

Within, the drops from dripping clothes went pat,

Running in little patters, gentle, sweet,

And "Ai, ai!" went the wind, and the seas beat.

His bunk was sopping wet; he clambered in.

None of his clothes were dry; his fear recurred.

Cramps bunched the muscles underneath his skin.

The great ship rolled until the lamp was blurred.

He took his Bible and tried to read a word;

Trembled at going aloft again, and then

Resolved to fight it out and show it to men.

Faces recurred, fierce memories of the yard,

The frozen sail, the savage eyes, the jests,

The oaths of one great seaman, syphilis-scarred,

The tug of leeches jammed beneath their chests,

The buntlines bellying bunts out into breasts.

The deck so desolate-grey, the sky so wild,

He fell asleep, and slept like a young child.

But not for long; the cold awoke him soon,

The hot-ache and the skin-cracks and the cramp,

The seas thundering without, the gale's wild tune,

The sopping misery of the blankets damp.

A speaking-trumpet roared; a sea-boot's stamp

Clogged at the door. A man entered to shout:

"All hands on deck! Arouse here! Tumble out!"

The caller raised the lamp; his oilskins clicked

As the thin ice upon them cracked and fell.

"Rouse out!" he said. "This lamp is frozen wick'd.

Rouse out!" His accent deepened to a yell.

"We're among ice; it's blowing up like hell.

We're going to hand both topsails. Time, I guess,

We're sheeted up. Rouse out! Don't stay to dress!"

"Is it cold on deck?" said Dauber. "Is it cold?

We're sheeted up, I tell you, inches thick!

The fo'c'sle's like a wedding-cake, I'm told.

Now tumble out, my sons; on deck here, quick!

Rouse out, away, and come and climb the stick.

I'm going to call the half-deck. Bosun! Hey!

Both topsails coming in. Heave out! Away!"

He went; the Dauber tumbled from his bunk,

Clutching the side. He heard the wind go past,

Making the great ship wallow as if drunk.

There was a shocking tumult up the mast.

"This is the end," he muttered, "come at last!

I've got to go aloft, facing this cold.

I can't. I can't. I'll never keep my hold.

"I cannot face the topsail yard again.

I never guessed what misery it would be."

The cramps and hot-ache made him sick with pain.

The ship stopped suddenly from a devilish sea,

Then, with a triumph of wash, a rush of glee,

The door burst in, and in the water rolled,

Filling the lower bunks, black, creaming, cold.

The lamp sucked out. "Wash!" went the water back,

Then in again, flooding; the Bosun swore.

"You useless thing! You Dauber! You lee slack!

Get out, you heekapoota! Shut the door!

You coo-ilyaira, what are you waiting for?

Out of my way, you thing--you useless thing!"

He slammed the door indignant, clanging the ring.

And then he lit the lamp, drowned to the waist;

"Here's a fine house! Get at the scupper-holes"--

He bent against it as the water raced--

"And pull them out to leeward when she rolls.

They say some kinds of landsmen don't have souls.

I well believe. A Port Mahon baboon

Would make more soul than you got with a spoon."

Down in the icy water Dauber groped

To find the plug; the racing water sluiced

Over his head and shoulders as she sloped.

Without, judged by the sound, all hell was loosed.

He felt cold Death about him tightly noosed.

That Death was better than the misery there

Iced on the quaking foothold high in air.

And then the thought came: "I'm a failure. All

My life has been a failure. They were right.

It will not matter if I go and fall;

I should be free then from this hell's delight.

I'll never paint. Best let it end to-night.

I'll slip over the side. I've tried and failed."

So in the ice-cold in the night he quailed.

Death would be better, death, than this long hell

Of mockery and surrender and dismay--

This long defeat of doing nothing well,

Playing the part too high for him to play.

"O Death! who hides the sorry thing away,

Take me; I've failed. I cannot play these cards."

There came a thundering from the topsail yards.

And then he bit his lips, clenching his mind,

And staggered out to muster, beating back

The coward frozen self of him that whined.

Come what cards might he meant to play the pack.

"Ai!" screamed the wind; the topsail sheet went clack;

Ice filled the air with spikes; the grey-backs burst.

"Here's Dauber," said the Mate, "on deck the first.

"Why, holy sailor, Dauber, you're a man!

I took you for a soldier. Up now, come!"

Up on the yards already they began

That battle with a gale which strikes men dumb.

The leaping topsail thundered like a drum.

The frozen snow beat in the face like shots.

The wind spun whipping wave-crests into clots.

So up upon the topsail yard again,

In the great tempest's fiercest hour, began

Probation to the Dauber's soul, of pain

Which crowds a century's torment in a span.

For the next month the ocean taught this man,

And he, in that month's torment, while she wested,

Was never warm nor dry, nor full nor rested.

But still it blew, or, if it lulled, it rose

Within the hour and blew again; and still

The water as it burst aboard her froze.

The wind blew off an ice-field, raw and chill,

Daunting man's body, tampering with his will;

But after thirty days a ghostly sun

Gave sickly promise that the storms were done.

VII

A great grey sea was running up the sky,

Desolate birds flew past; their mewings came

As that lone water's spiritual cry,

Its forlorn voice, its essence, its soul's name.

The ship limped in the water as if lame.

Then in the forenoon watch to a great shout

More sail was made, the reefs were shaken out.

A slant came from the south; the singers stood

Clapped to the halliards, hauling to a tune,

Old as the sea, a fillip to the blood.

The upper topsail rose like a balloon.

"So long, Cape Stiff. In Valparaiso soon,"

Said one to other, as the ship lay over,

Making her course again--again a rover.

Slowly the sea went down as the wind fell.

Clear rang the songs, "Hurrah! Cape Horn is bet!"

The combless seas were lumping into swell;

The leaking fo'c'sles were no longer wet.

More sail was made; the watch on deck was set

To cleaning up the ruin broken bare

Below, aloft, about her, everywhere.

The Dauber, scrubbing out the roundhouse, found

Old pantiles pulped among the mouldy gear,

Washed underneath the bunks and long since drowned

During the agony of the Cape Horn year.

He sang in scrubbing, for he had done with fear--

Fronted the worst and looked it in the face;

He had got manhood at the testing-place.

Singing he scrubbed, passing his watch below,

Making the round-house fair; the Bosun watched,

Bringing his knitting slowly to the toe.

Sails stretched a mizen skysail which he patched;

They thought the Dauber was a bad egg hatched.

"Daubs," said the Bosun cheerly, "can you knit?

I've made a Barney's bull of this last bit."

Then, while the Dauber counted, Bosun took

Some marline from his pocket. "Here," he said,

"You want to know square sennit? So fash. Look!

Eight foxes take, and stop the ends with thread.

I've known an engineer would give his head

To know square sennit." As the Bose began,

The Dauber felt promoted into man.

It was his warrant that he had not failed--

That the most hard part in his difficult climb

Had not been past attainment; it was scaled:

Safe footing showed above the slippery slime.

He had emerged out of the iron time,

And knew that he could compass his life's scheme;

He had the power sufficient to his dream.

Then dinner came, and now the sky was blue.

The ship was standing north, the Horn was rounded;

She made a thundering as she weltered through.

The mighty grey-backs glittered as she bounded.

More sail was piled upon her; she was hounded

North, while the wind came; like a stag she ran

Over grey hills and hollows of seas wan.

She had a white bone in her mouth: she sped;

Those in the round-house watched her as they ate

Their meal of pork-fat fried with broken bread.

"Good old!" they cried. "She's off; she's gathering gait!"

Her track was whitening like a Lammas spate.

"Good old!" they cried. "Oh, give her cloth! Hurray!

For three weeks more to Valparaiso Bay!

"She smells old Vallipo," the Bosun cried.

"We'll be inside the tier in three weeks more,

Lying at double-moorings where they ride

Off of the market, half a mile from shore,

And bumboat pan, my sons, and figs galore,

And girls in black mantillas fit to make a

Poor seaman frantic when they dance the cueca."

Eight bells were made, the watch was changed, and now

The Mate spoke to the Dauber: "This is better.

We'll soon be getting mudhooks over the bow.

She'll make her passage still if this'll let her.

Oh, run, you drogher! dip your fo'c'sle wetter.

Well, Dauber, this is better than Cape Horn.

Them topsails made you wish you'd not been born."

"Yes, sir," the Dauber said. "Now," said the Mate,

"We've got to smart her up. Them Cape Horn seas

Have made her paint-work like a rusty grate.

Oh, didn't them topsails make your fishhooks freeze?

A topsail don't pay heed to 'Won't you, please?'

Well, you have seen Cape Horn, my son; you've learned.

You've dipped your hand and had your fingers burned.

"And now you'll stow that folly, trying to paint.

You've had your lesson; you're a sailor now.

You come on board a female ripe to faint.

All sorts of slush you'd learned, the Lord knows how.

Cape Horn has sent you wisdom over the bow

If you've got sense to take it. You're a sailor.

My God! before you were a woman's tailor.

"So throw your paints to blazes and have done.

Words can't describe the silly things you did

Sitting before your easel in the sun,

With all your colours on the paint-box lid.

I blushed for you ... and then the daubs you hid.

My God! you'll have more sense now, eh? You've quit?"

"No, sir." "You've not?" "No, sir." "God give you wit.

"I thought you'd come to wisdom." Thus they talked,

While the great clipper took her bit and rushed

Like a skin-glistening stallion not yet baulked,

Till fire-bright water at her swing ports gushed;

Poising and bowing down her fore-foot crushed

Bubble on glittering bubble; on she went.

The Dauber watched her, wondering what it meant.

To come, after long months, at rosy dawn,

Into the placid blue of some great bay.

Treading the quiet water like a fawn

Ere yet the morning haze was blown away.

A rose-flushed figure putting by the grey,

And anchoring there before the city smoke

Rose, or the church-bells rang, or men awoke.

And then, in the first light, to see grow clear

That long-expected haven filled with strangers--

Alive with men and women; see and hear

Its clattering market and its money-changers;

And hear the surf beat, and be free from dangers,

And watch the crinkled ocean blue with calm

Drowsing beneath the Trade, beneath the palm.

Hungry for that he worked; the hour went by,

And still the wind grew, still the clipper strode,

And now a darkness hid the western sky,

And sprays came flicking off at the wind's goad.

She stumbled now, feeling her sail a load.

The Mate gazed hard to windward, eyed his sail,

And said the Horn was going to flick her tail.

Boldly he kept it on her till she staggered,

But still the wind increased; it grew, it grew,

Darkening the sky, making the water haggard;

Full of small snow the mighty wester blew.

"More fun for little fish-hooks," sighed the crew.

They eyed the taut topgallants stiff like steel;

A second hand was ordered to the wheel.

The Captain eyed her aft, sucking his lip,

Feeling the sail too much, but yet refraining

From putting hobbles on the leaping ship,

The glad sea-shattering stallion, halter-straining,

Wing-musical, uproarious, and complaining;

But, in a gust, he cocked his finger, so:

"You'd better take them off, before they go."

All saw. They ran at once without the word

"Lee-ay! Lee-ay!" Loud rang the clew-line cries;

Sam in his bunk within the half-deck heard,

Stirred in his sleep, and rubbed his drowsy eyes.

"There go the lower to'gallants." Against the skies

Rose the thin bellying strips of leaping sail.

The Dauber was the first man over the rail.

Three to a mast they ran; it was a race.

"God!" said the Mate; "that Dauber, he can go."

He watched the runners with an upturned face

Over the futtocks, struggling heel to toe,

Up to the topmast cross-trees into the blow

Where the three sails were leaping. "Dauber wins!"

The yards were reached, and now the race begins.

Which three will furl their sail first and come down?

Out to the yard-arm for the leech goes one,

His hair blown flagwise from a hatless crown,

His hands at work like fever to be done.

Out of the gale a fiercer fury spun.

The three sails leaped together, yanking high,

Like talons darting up to clutch the sky.

The Dauber on the fore-topgallant yard

Out at the weather yard-arm was the first

To lay his hand upon the buntline-barred

Topgallant yanking to the wester's burst;

He craned to catch the leech; his comrades cursed;

One at the buntlines, one with oaths observed,

"The eye of the outer jib-stay isn't served."

"No," said the Dauber. "No," the man replied.

They heaved, stowing the sail, not looking round,

Panting, but full of life and eager-eyed;

The gale roared at them with its iron sound.

"That's you," the Dauber said. His gasket wound

Swift round the yard, binding the sail in bands;

There came a gust, the sail leaped from his hands,

So that he saw it high above him, grey,

And there his mate was falling; quick he clutched

An arm in oilskins swiftly snatched away.

A voice said "Christ!" a quick shape stooped and touched,

Chain struck his hands, ropes shot, the sky was smutched

With vast black fires that ran, that fell, that furled,

And then he saw the mast, the small snow hurled,

The fore-topgallant yard far, far aloft,

And blankness settling on him and great pain;

And snow beneath his fingers wet and soft,

And topsail sheet-blocks shaking at the chain.

He knew it was he who had fallen; then his brain

Swirled in a circle while he watched the sky.

Infinite multitudes of snow blew by.

"I thought it was Tom who fell," his brain's voice said.

"Down on the bloody deck!" the Captain screamed.

The multitudinous little snow-flakes sped.

His pain was real enough, but all else seemed.

Si with a bucket ran, the water gleamed

Tilting upon him; others came, the Mate ...

They knelt with eager eyes like things that wait

For other things to come. He saw them there.

"It will go on," he murmured, watching Si.

Colours and sounds seemed mixing in the air,

The pain was stunning him, and the wind went by.

"More water," said the Mate. "Here, Bosun, try.

Ask if he's got a message. Hell, he's gone!

Here, Dauber, paints." He said, "It will go on."

Not knowing his meaning rightly, but he spoke

With the intenseness of a fading soul

Whose share of Nature's fire turns to smoke,

Whose hand on Nature's wheel loses control.

The eager faces glowered red like coal.

They glowed, the great storm glowed, the sails, the mast.

"It will go on," he cried aloud, and passed.

Those from the yard came down to tell the tale.

"He almost had me off," said Tom. "He slipped.

There come one hell of a jump-like from the sail....

He clutched at me and almost had me pipped.

He caught my 'ris'band, but the oilskin ripped....

It tore clean off. Look here. I was near gone.

I made a grab to catch him; so did John.

"I caught his arm. My God! I was near done.

He almost had me over; it was near.

He hit the ropes and grabbed at every one."

"Well," said the Mate, "we cannot leave him here.

Run, Si, and get the half-deck table clear.

We'll lay him there. Catch hold there, you, and you,

He's dead, poor son; there's nothing more to do."

Night fell, and all night long the Dauber lay

Covered upon the table; all night long

The pitiless storm exulted at her prey,

Huddling the waters with her icy thong.

But to the covered shape she did no wrong.

He lay beneath the sailcloth. Bell by bell

The night wore through; the stars rose, the stars fell.

Blowing most pitiless cold out of clear sky

The wind roared all night long; and all night through

The green seas on the deck went washing by,

Flooding the half-deck; bitter hard it blew.

But little of it all the Dauber knew--

The sopping bunks, the floating chests, the wet,

The darkness, and the misery, and the sweat.

He was off duty. So it blew all night,

And when the watches changed the men would come

Dripping within the door to strike a light

And stare upon the Dauber lying dumb,

And say, "He come a cruel thump, poor chum."

Or, "He'd a-been a fine big man;" or, "He ...

A smart young seaman he was getting to be."

Or, "Damn it all, it's what we've all to face! ...

I knew another fellow one time ..." then

Came a strange tale of death in a strange place

Out on the sea, in ships, with wandering men.

In many ways Death puts us into pen.

The reefers came down tired and looked and slept.

Below the skylight little dribbles crept

Along the painted woodwork, glistening, slow,

Following the roll and dripping, never fast,

But dripping on the quiet form below,

Like passing time talking to time long past.

And all night long "Ai, ai!" went the wind's blast,

And creaming water swished below the pale,

Unheeding body stretched beneath the sail.

At dawn they sewed him up, and at eight bells

They bore him to the gangway, wading deep,

Through the green-clutching, white-toothed water-hells

That flung his carriers over in their sweep.

They laid an old red ensign on the heap,

And all hands stood bare-headed, stooping, swaying,

Washed by the sea while the old man was praying

Out of a borrowed prayer-book. At a sign

They twitched the ensign back and tipped the grating

A creamier bubbling broke the bubbling brine.

The muffled figure tilted to the weighting;

It dwindled slowly down, slowly gyrating.

Some craned to see; it dimmed, it disappeared;

The last green milky bubble blinked and cleared.

"Mister, shake out your reefs," the Captain called.

"Out topsail reefs!" the Mate cried; then all hands

Hurried, the great sails shook, and all hands hauled,

Singing that desolate song of lonely lands,

Of how a lover came in dripping bands,

Green with the wet and cold, to tell his lover

That Death was in the sea, and all was over.

Fair came the falling wind; a seaman said

The Dauber was a Jonah; once again

The clipper held her course, showing red lead,

Shattering the sea-tops into golden rain.

The waves bowed down before her like blown grain;

Onwards she thundered, on; her voyage was short,

Before the tier's bells rang her into port.

Cheerly they rang her in, those beating bells,

The new-come beauty stately from the sea,

Whitening the blue heave of the drowsy swells,

Treading the bubbles down. With three times three

They cheered her moving beauty in, and she

Came to her berth so noble, so superb;

Swayed like a queen, and answered to the curb.

Then in the sunset's flush they went aloft,

And unbent sails in that most lovely hour,

When the light gentles and the wind is soft,

And beauty in the heart breaks like a flower.

Working aloft they saw the mountain tower,

Snow to the peak; they heard the launch-men shout;

And bright along the bay the lights came out.

And then the night fell dark, and all night long

The pointed mountain pointed at the stars,

Frozen, alert, austere; the eagle's song

Screamed from her desolate screes and splintered scars.

On her intense crags where the air is sparse

The stars looked down; their many golden eyes

Watched her and burned, burned out, and came to rise.

Silent the finger of the summit stood,

Icy in pure, thin air, glittering with snows.

Then the sun's coming turned the peak to blood,

And in the rest-house the muleteers arose.

And all day long, where only the eagle goes,

Stones, loosened by the sun, fall; the stones falling

Fill empty gorge on gorge with echoes calling.

EXPLANATIONS OF SOME OF THE SEA

TERMS USED IN THE POEM

Backstays. Wire ropes which support the masts against lateral and after strains.

Barney's bull. A figure in marine proverb. A jewel in marine repartee.

Bells. Two bells (one forward, one aft) which are struck every half-hour in a certain manner to mark the passage of the watches.

Bitts. Strong wooden structures (built round each mast) upon which running rigging is secured.

Block. A sheaved pulley.

Boatswain. A supernumerary or idler, generally attached to the mate's watch, and holding considerable authority over the crew.

Bouilli tin. Any tin that contains, or has contained, preserved meat.

Bows. The forward extremity of a ship.

Brace-blocks. Pulleys through which the braces travel.

Braces. Ropes by which the yards are inclined forward or aft.

Bumboat pan. Soft bread sold by the bumboat man, a kind of sea costermonger who trades with ships in port.

Bunt. Those cloths of a square sail which are nearest to the mast when the sail is set. The central portion of a furled square sail. The human abdomen (figuratively).

Buntlines. Ropes which help to confine square sails to the yards in the operation of furling.

Chocks. Wooden stands on which the boats rest.

Cleats. Iron or wooden contrivances to which ropes may be secured.

Clew-lines. Ropes by which the lower corners of square sails are lifted.

Clews. The lower corners of square sails.

Clipper. A title of honour given to ships of more than usual speed and beauty.

Coaming. The raised rim of a hatchway; a barrier at a doorway to keep water from entering.

Courses. The large square sails set upon the lower yards of sailing ships. The mizen course is called the "crojick."

Cringled. Fitted with iron rings or cringles, many of which are let into sails or sail-roping for various purposes.

Crojick (or cross-jack). A square sail set upon the lower yard of the mizen mast.

Dungarees. Thin blue or khaki-coloured overalls made from cocoanut fibre.

Fairleads. Rings of wood or iron by means of which running rigging is led in any direction.

Fife-rails. Strong wooden shelves fitted with iron pins, to which ropes may be secured.

Fish-hooks. I.e., fingers.

Foot-ropes. Ropes on which men stand when working aloft.

Fo'c'sle. The cabin or cabins in which the men are berthed. It is usually an iron deck-house divided through the middle into two compartments for the two watches, and fitted with wooden bunks. Sometimes it is even fitted with lockers and an iron water-tank.

Foxes. Strands, yarns, or arrangements of yarns of rope.

Freeing-ports. Iron doors in the ship's side which open outwards to free the decks of water.

Frap. To wrap round with rope.

Futtock-shrouds. Iron bars to which the topmast rigging is secured. As they project outward and upward from the masts they are difficult to clamber over.

Galley. The ship's kitchen.

Gantline (girtline). A rope used for the sending of sails up and down from aloft.

Gaskets. Ropes by which the sails are secured in furling.

Half-deck. A cabin or apartment in which the apprentices are berthed. Its situation is usually the ship's waist; but it is sometimes further aft, and occasionally it is under the poop or even right forward under the top-gallant fo'c'sle.

Halliards. Ropes by which sails are hoisted.

Harness-room. An office or room from which the salt meat is issued, and in which it is sometimes stored.

Hawse. The bows or forward end of a ship.

Head. The forward part of a ship. That upper edge of a square sail which is attached to the yard.

House-flag. The special flag of the firm to which a ship belongs.

Idlers. The members of the round-house mess, generally consisting of the carpenter, cook, sailmaker, boatswain, painter, etc., are known as the idlers.

Jack (or jackstay). An iron bar (fitted along all yards in sailing ships) to which the head of a square sail is secured when bent.

Kites. Light upper sails.

Leeches. The outer edges of square sails. In furling some square sails the leech is dragged inwards till it lies level with the head upon the surface of the yard. This is done by the first man who gets upon the yard, beginning at the weather side.

Logship. A contrivance by which a ship's speed is measured.

Lower topsail. The second sail from the deck on square rigged masts. It is a very strong, important sail.

Marline. Tarry line or coarse string made of rope-yarns twisted together.

Mate. The First or Chief Mate is generally called the Mate.

Mizen-topmast-head. The summit of the second of the three or four spars which make the complete mizen-mast.

Mudhooks. Anchors.

Pins. Iron or wooden bars to which running rigging is secured.

Pointing. A kind of neat plait with which ropes are sometimes ended off or decorated.

Poop-break. The forward end of the after superstructure.

Ratlines. The rope steps placed across the shrouds to enable the seamen to go aloft.

Reefers. Apprentices.

Reef-points. Ropes by which the area of some sails may be reduced in the operation of reefing. Reef-points are securely fixed to the sails fitted with them, and when not in use their ends patter continually upon the canvas with a gentle drumming noise.

Reel. A part of the machinery used with a logship.

Round-house. A cabin (of all shapes except round) in which the idlers are berthed.

Royals. Light upper square sails; the fourth, fifth, or sixth sails from the deck according to the mast's rig.

Sail-room. A large room or compartment in which the ship's sails are stored.

"Sails." The sailmaker is meant.

Scuttle-butt. A cask containing fresh water.

Shackles. Rope handles for a sea-chest.

Sheet-blocks. Iron blocks, by means of which sails are sheeted home. In any violent wind they beat upon the mast with great rapidity and force.

Sheets. Ropes or chains which extend the lower corners of square sails in the operation of sheeting home.

Shifting suits (of sails). The operation of removing a ship's sails, and replacing them with others.

Shrouds. Wire ropes of great strength, which support lateral strains on masts.

Shroud-screws. Iron contrivances by which shrouds are hove taut.

Sidelights. A sailing ship carries two of these between sunset and sunrise: one green, to starboard; one red, to port.

Sights. Observations to help in the finding of a ship's position.

Skid. A wooden contrivance on which ship's boats rest.

Skysails. The uppermost square sails; the fifth, sixth, or seventh sails from the deck according to the mast's rig.

Slatting. The noise made by sails flogging in the wind.

Slush. Grease, melted fat.

South-wester. A kind of oilskin hat. A gale from the south-west.

Spit brown. To chew tobacco.

Square sennit. A cunning plait which makes a four-square bar.

Staysails. Fore and aft sails set upon the stays between the masts.

Stow. To furl.

Strop (the, putting on). A strop is a grument or rope ring. The two players kneel down facing each other, the strop is placed over their heads, and the men then try to pull each other over by the strength of their neck-muscles.

Swing ports. Iron doors in the ship's side which open outwards to free the decks from water.

Tackle (pronounced "taykel"). Blocks, ropes, pulleys, etc.

Take a caulk. To sleep upon the deck.

Topsails. The second and third sails from the deck on the masts of a modern square-rigged ship are known as the lower and upper topsails.

Trucks. The summits of the masts.

Upper topsail. The third square sail from the deck on the masts of square-rigged ships.

Yards. The steel or wooden spars (placed across masts) from which square sails are set.

BIOGRAPHY

When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts

Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts,

And long before this wandering flesh is rotten

The dates which made me will be all forgotten;

And none will know the gleam there used to be

About the feast days freshly kept by me,

But men will call the golden hour of bliss

"About this time," or "shortly after this."

Men do not heed the rungs by which men climb

Those glittering steps, those milestones upon Time,

Those tombstones of dead selves, those hours of birth,

Those moments of the soul in years of earth

They mark the height achieved, the main result,

The power of freedom in the perished cult,

The power of boredom in the dead man's deeds,

Not the bright moments of the sprinkled seeds.

By many waters and on many ways

I have known golden instants and bright days;

The day on which, beneath an arching sail,

I saw the Cordilleras and gave hail;

The summer day on which in heart's delight

I saw the Swansea Mumbles bursting white,

The glittering day when all the waves wore flags

And the ship Wanderer came with sails in rags;

That curlew-calling time in Irish dusk

When life became more splendid than its husk,

When the rent chapel on the brae at Slains

Shone with a doorway opening beyond brains;

The dawn when, with a brace-block's creaking cry,

Out of the mist a little barque slipped by,

Spilling the mist with changing gleams of red,

Then gone, with one raised hand and one turned head;

The howling evening when the spindrift's mists

Broke to display the four Evangelists,

Snow-capped, divinely granite, lashed by breakers,

Wind-beaten bones of long since buried acres;

The night alone near water when I heard

All the sea's spirit spoken by a bird;

The English dusk when I beheld once more

(With eyes so changed) the ship, the citied shore,

The lines of masts, the streets so cheerly trod

(In happier seasons) and gave thanks to God.

All had their beauty, then bright moments' gift,

Their something caught from Time, the ever-swift.

All of those gleams were golden; but life's hands

Have given more constant gifts in changing lands,

And when I count those gifts, I think them such

As no man's bounty could have bettered much:

The gift of country life, near hills and woods

Where happy waters sing in solitudes,

The gift of being near ships, of seeing each day

A city of ships with great ships under weigh,

The great street paved with water, filled with shipping,

And all the world's flags flying and seagulls dipping.

Yet when I am dust my penman may not know

Those water-trampling ships which made me glow,

But think my wonder mad and fail to find

Their glory, even dimly, from my mind,

And yet they made me:

not alone the ships

But men hard-palmed from tallying-on to whips,

The two close friends of nearly twenty years,

Sea-followers both, sea-wrestlers and sea-peers,

Whose feet with mine wore many a bolt-head bright

Treading the decks beneath the riding light.

Yet death will make that warmth of friendship cold

And who'll know what one said and what one told

Our hearts' communion and the broken spells

When the loud call blew at the strike of bells?

No one, I know, yet let me be believed

A soul entirely known is life achieved.

Years blank with hardship never speak a word

Live in the soul to make the being stirred,

Towns can be prisons where the spirit dulls

Away from mates and ocean-wandering hulls,

Away from all bright water and great hills

And sheep-walks where the curlews cry their fills,

Away in towns, where eyes have nought to see

But dead museums and miles of misery

And floating life unrooted from man's need

And miles of fish-hooks baited to catch greed

And life made wretched out of human ken

And miles of shopping women served by men.

So, if the penman sums my London days

Let him but say that there were holy ways,

Dull Bloomsbury streets of dull brick mansions old

With stinking doors where women stood to scold

And drunken waits at Christmas with their horn

Droning the news, in snow, that Christ was born;

And windy gas lamps and the wet roads shining

And that old carol of the midnight whining,

And that old room (above the noisy slum)

Where there was wine and fire and talk with some

Under strange pictures of the wakened soul

To whom this earth was but a burnt-out coal.

O Time, bring back those midnights and those friends,

Those glittering moments that a spirit lends

That all may be imagined from the flash

The cloud-hid god-game through the lightning gash

Those hours of stricken sparks from which men took

Light to send out to men in song or book.

Those friends who heard St. Pancras' bells strike two

Yet stayed until the barber's cockerel crew.

Talking of noble styles, the Frenchman's best,

The thought beyond great poets not expressed,

The glory of mood where human frailty failed,

The forts of human light not yet assailed,

Till the dim room had mind and seemed to brood

Binding our wills to mental brotherhood,

Till we became a college, and each night

Was discipline and manhood and delight,

Till our farewells and winding down the stairs

At each grey dawn had meaning that Time spares,

That we, so linked, should roam the whole world round

Teaching the ways our brooding minds had found

Making that room our Chapter, our one mind

Where all that this world soiled should be refined.

Often at night I tread those streets again

And see the alley glimmering in the rain,

Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps

A house with shadows of plane-boughs under lamps,

The secret house where once a beggar stood

Trembling and blind to show his woe for food.

And now I miss that friend who used to walk

Home to my lodgings with me, deep in talk,

Wearing the last of night out in still streets

Trodden by us and policemen on their beats

And cats, but else deserted; now I miss

That lively mind and guttural laugh of his

And that strange way he had of making gleam,

Like something real, the art we used to dream.

London has been my prison; but my books

Hills and great waters, labouring men and brooks,

Ships and deep friendships and remembered days

Which even now set all my mind ablaze

As that June day when, in the red bricks' chinks

I saw the old Roman ruins white with pinks

And felt the hillside haunted even then

By not dead memory of the Roman men.

And felt the hillside thronged by souls unseen

Who knew the interest in me and were keen

That man alive should understand man dead

So many centuries since the blood was shed.

And quickened with strange hush because this comer

Sensed a strange soul alive behind the summer.

That other day on Ercall when the stones

Were sunbleached white, like long unburied bones,

While the bees droned and all the air was sweet

From honey buried underneath my feet,

Honey of purple heather and white clover

Sealed in its gummy bags till summer's over.

Then other days by water, by bright sea,

Clear as clean glass and my bright friend with me,

The cove clean bottomed where we saw the brown

Red spotted plaice go skimming six feet down

And saw the long fronds waving, white with shells,

Waving, unfolding, drooping, to the swells;

That sadder day when we beheld the great

And terrible beauty of a Lammas spate

Roaring white-mouthed in all the great cliff's gaps

Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse,

While drenching clouds drove by and every sense

Was water roaring or rushing or in offence,

And mountain sheep stood huddled and blown gaps gleamed

Where torn white hair of torrents shook and streamed.

That sadder day when we beheld again

A spate going down in sunshine after rain,

When the blue reach of water leaping bright

Was one long ripple and clatter, flecked with white.

And that far day, that never blotted page

When youth was bright like flowers about old age

Fair generations bringing thanks for life

To that old kindly man and trembling wife

After their sixty years: Time never made

A better beauty since the Earth was laid

Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair

For the great gift of life which brought them there.

Days of endeavour have been good: the days

Racing in cutters for the comrade's praise,

The day they led my cutter at the turn

Yet could not keep the lead and dropped astern,

The moment in the spurt when both boats' oars

Dipped in each other's wash and throats grew hoarse

And teeth ground into teeth and both strokes quickened

Lashing the sea, and gasps came, and hearts sickened

And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking stroke,

To put our weights on, though our hearts were broke

And both boats seemed to stick and sea seemed glue,

The tide a mill race we were struggling through

And every quick recover gave us squints

Of them still there, and oar tossed water-glints

And cheering came, our friends, our foemen cheering,

A long, wild, rallying murmur on the hearing--

"Port Fore!" and "Starboard Fore!"

"Port Fore." "Port Fore."

"Up with her, Starboard," and at that each oar

Lightened, though arms were bursting, and eyes shut

And the oak stretchers grunted in the strut

And the curse quickened from the cox, our bows

Crashed, and drove talking water, we made vows

Chastity vows and temperance; in our pain

We numbered things we'd never eat again

If we could only win; then came the yell

"Starboard," "Port Fore," and then a beaten bell

Rung as for fire to cheer us. "Now." Oars bent

Soul took the looms now body's bolt was spent,

"Damn it, come on now," "On now," "On now," "Starboard."

"Port Fore." "Up with her, Port"; each cutter harboured

Ten eye-shut painsick stragglers, "Heave, oh, heave,"

Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking sheave.

"Heave," and I saw a back, then two. "Port Fore."

"Starboard." "Come on." I saw the midship oar

And knew we had done them. "Port Fore." "Starboard." "Now."

I saw bright water spurting at their bow

Their cox' full face an instant. They were done.

The watchers' cheering almost drowned the gun.

We had hardly strength to toss our oars; our cry

Cheering the losing cutter was a sigh.

Other bright days of action have seemed great:

Wild days in a pampero off the Plate;

Good swimming days, at Hog Back or the Coves

Which the young gannet and the corbie loves;

Surf-swimming between rollers, catching breath

Between the advancing grave and breaking death,

Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth

To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth,

And days of labour also, loading, hauling;

Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, pawling;

The days with oxen, dragging stone from blasting,

And dusty days in mills, and hot days masting.

Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice,

And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice;

Mornings with buckwheat when the fields did blanch

With White Leghorns come from the chicken ranch.

Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill,

Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill.

Delights of work most real, delights that change

The headache life of towns to rapture strange

Not known by townsmen, nor imagined; health

That puts new glory upon mental wealth

And makes the poor man rich.

But that ends, too,

Health with its thoughts of life; and that bright view

That sunny landscape from life's peak, that glory,

And all a glad man's comments on life's story

And thoughts of marvellous towns and living men

And what pens tell and all beyond the pen

End, and are summed in words so truly dead

They raise no image of the heart and head,

The life, the man alive, the friend we knew,

The mind ours argued with or listened to,

None; but are dead, and all life's keenness, all,

Is dead as print before the funeral,

Even deader after, when the dates are sought,

And cold minds disagree with what we thought.

This many pictured world of many passions

Wears out the nations as a woman fashions,

And what life is is much to very few,

Men being so strange, so mad, and what men do

So good to watch or share; but when men count

Those hours of life that were a bursting fount,

Sparkling the dusty heart with living springs,

There seems a world, beyond our earthly things,

Gated by golden moments, each bright time

Opening to show the city white like lime,

High towered and many peopled. This made sure,

Work that obscures those moments seems impure,

Making our not-returning time of breath

Dull with the ritual and records of death,

That frost of fact by which our wisdom gives

Correctly stated death to all that lives.

Best trust the happy moments. What they gave

Makes man less fearful of the certain grave,

And gives his work compassion and new eyes.

The days that make us happy make us wise.

SHIPS

I cannot tell their wonder nor make known

Magic that once thrilled through me to the bone,

But all men praise some beauty, tell some tale,

Vent a high mood which makes the rest seem pale,

Pour their heart's blood to flourish one green leaf,

Follow some Helen for her gift of grief,

And fail in what they mean, whate'er they do:

You should have seen, man cannot tell to you

The beauty of the ships of that my city.

That beauty now is spoiled by the sea's pity;

For one may haunt the pier a score of times,

Hearing St. Nicholas bells ring out the chimes,

Yet never see those proud ones swaying home

With mainyards backed and bows a cream of foam,

Those bows so lovely-curving, cut so fine,

Those coulters of the many-bubbled brine,

As once, long since, when all the docks were filled

With that sea-beauty man has ceased to build.

Yet, though their splendour may have ceased to be,

Each played her sovereign part in making me;

Now I return my thanks with heart and lips

For the great queenliness of all those ships.

And first the first bright memory, still so clear,

An autumn evening in a golden year,

When in the last lit moments before dark

The Chepica, a steel-grey lovely barque,

Came to an anchor near us on the flood,

Her trucks aloft in sun-glow red as blood.

Then come so many ships that I could fill

Three docks with their fair hulls remembered still,

Each with her special memory's special grace,

Riding the sea, making the waves give place

To delicate high beauty; man's best strength,

Noble in every line in all their length.

Ailsa, Genista, ships, with long jibbooms,

The Wanderer with great beauty and strange dooms,

Liverpool (mightiest then) superb, sublime,

The California huge, as slow as time.

The Copley swift, the perfect J. T. North,

The loveliest barque my city has sent forth,

Dainty John Lockett well remembered yet,

The splendid Argus with her skysail set,

Stalwart Drumcliff, white-blocked, majestic Sierras,

Divine bright ships, the water's standard-bearers;

Melpomene, Euphrosyne, and their sweet

Sea-troubling sisters of the Fernie fleet;

Corunna (in whom my friend died) and the old

Long since loved Esmeralda long since sold.

Centurion passed in Rio, Glaucus spoken,

Aladdin burnt, the Bidston water-broken,

Yola, in whom my friend sailed, Dawpool trim,

Fierce-bowed Egeria plunging to the swim,

Stanmore wide-sterned, sweet Cupica, tall Bard,

Queen in all harbours with her moon sail yard.

Though I tell many, there must still be others,

McVickar Marshall's ships and Fernie Brothers',

Lochs, Counties, Shires, Drums, the countless lines

Whose house-flags all were once familiar signs

At high main-trucks on Mersey's windy ways

When sunlight made the wind-white water blaze.

Their names bring back old mornings, when the docks

Shone with their house-flags and their painted blocks,

Their raking masts below the Custom House

And all the marvellous beauty of their bows.

Familiar steamers, too, majestic steamers,

Shearing Atlantic roller-tops to streamers,

Umbria, Etruria, noble, still at sea,

The grandest, then, that man had brought to be.

Majestic, City of Paris, City of Rome,

Forever jealous racers, out and home.

The Alfred Holt's blue smoke-stacks down the stream,

The fair Loanda with her bows a-cream.

Booth liners, Anchor liners, Red Star liners,

The marks and styles of countless ship-designers,

The Magdalena, Puno, Potosi,

Lost Cotopaxi, all well known to me.

These splendid ships, each with her grace, her glory,

Her memory of old song or comrade's story,

Still in my mind the image of life's need,

Beauty in hardest action, beauty indeed.

"They built great ships and sailed them" sounds most brave

Whatever arts we have or fail to have;

I touch my country's mind, I come to grips

With half her purpose, thinking of these ships

That art untouched by softness, all that line

Drawn ringing hard to stand the test of brine,

That nobleness and grandeur, all that beauty

Born of a manly life and bitter duty,

That splendour of fine bows which yet could stand

The shock of rollers never checked by land.

That art of masts, sail crowded, fit to break,

Yet stayed to strength and backstayed into rake,

The life demanded by that art, the keen

Eye-puckered, hard-case seamen, silent, lean,--

They are grander things than all the art of towns,

Their tests are tempests and the sea that drowns,

They are my country's line, her great art done

By strong brains labouring on the thought unwon,

They mark our passage as a race of men,

Earth will not see such ships as those again.

TRUTH

Man with his burning soul

Has but an hour of breath

To build a ship of Truth

In which his soul may sail,

Sail on the sea of death.

For death takes toll

Of beauty, courage, youth,

Of all but Truth.

Life's city ways are dark,

Men mutter by; the wells

Of the great waters moan.

O death, O sea, O tide,

The waters moan like bells.

No light, no mark,

The soul goes out alone

On seas unknown.

Stripped of all purple robes,

Stripped of all golden lies,

I will not be afraid.

Truth will preserve through death;

Perhaps the stars will rise,

The stars like globes.

The ship my striving made

May see night fade.

THEY CLOSED HER EYES

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO A. BECQUER.

They closed her eyes,

They were still open;

They hid her face

With a white linen,

And, some sobbing,

Others in silence,

From the sad bedroom

All came away.

The night-light in a dish

Burned on the floor,

It flung on the wall

The bed's shadow,

And in that shadow

One saw sometimes

Drawn in sharp line

The body's shape.

The day awakened

At its first whiteness

With its thousand noises;

The town awoke

Before that contrast

Of life and strangeness,

Of light and darkness.

I thought a moment

My God, how lonely

The dead are!

From the house, shoulder-high

To church they bore her,

And in a chapel

They left her bier.

There they surrounded

Her pale body

With yellow candles

And black stuffs.

At the last stroke

Of the ringing for the souls

An old crone finished

Her last prayers.

She crossed the narrow nave;

The doors moaned,

And the holy place

Remained deserted.

From a clock one heard

The measured ticking,

And from some candles

The guttering.

All things there

Were so grim and sad,

So dark and rigid,

That I thought a moment,

My God, how lonely

The dead are!

From the high belfry

The tongue of iron

Clanged, giving out

His sad farewell.

Crape on their clothes,

Her friends and kindred

Passed in a row,

Making procession.

In the last vault,

Dark and narrow,

The pickaxe opened

A niche at one end;

There they laid her down.

Soon they bricked the place up,

And with a gesture

Bade grief farewell.

Pickaxe on shoulder

The grave-digger,

Singing between his teeth,

Passed out of sight.

The night came down;

It was all silent,

Lost in the shadows

I thought a moment.

My God, how lonely

The dead are!

In the long nights

Of bitter winter,

When the wind makes

The rafters creak,

When the violent rain

Lashes the windows,

Lonely, I remember

That poor girl.

There falls the rain

With its noise eternal.

There the north wind

Fights with the rain.

Stretched in the hollow

Of the damp bricks

Perhaps her bones

Freeze with the cold.

Does the dust return to dust?

Does the soul fly to heaven?

Is all vile matter,

Rottenness, filthiness?

I know not. But

There is something--something

That I cannot explain,

Something that gives us

Loathing, terror,

To leave the dead

So alone, so wretched.

THE HARP

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO A. BECQUER

In a dark corner of the room,

Perhaps forgotten by its owner,

Silent and dim with dust,

I saw the harp.

How many musics slumbered in its strings,

As the bird sleeps in the branches,

Waiting the snowy hand

That could awaken them.

Ah me, I thought, how many, many times

Genius thus slumbers in a human soul,

Waiting, as Lazarus waited, for a voice

To bid him "Rise and walk."

SONNET

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO

I saw the ramparts of my native land,

One time so strong, now dropping in decay,

Their strength destroyed by this new age's way

That has worn out and rotted what was grand.

I went into the fields: there I could see

The sun drink up the waters newly thawed,

And on the hills the moaning cattle pawed;

Their miseries robbed the day of light for me.

I went into my house: I saw how spotted,

Decaying things made that old home their prize.

My withered walking-staff had come to bend;

I felt the age had won; my sword was rotted,

And there was nothing on which I set my eyes

That was not a reminder of the end.

SONNET ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF ANTONIO DE FERREIRO

That blessed sunlight that once showed to me

My way to heaven more plain more certainly,

And with her bright beam banished utterly

All trace of mortal sorrow far from me,

Has gone from me, has left her prison sad,

And I am blind and alone and gone astray,

Like a lost pilgrim in a desert way

Wanting the blessed guide that once he had.

Thus with a spirit bowed and mind a blur

I trace the holy steps where she has gone,

By valleys and by meadows and by mountains,

And everywhere I catch a glimpse of her.

She takes me by the hand and leads me on,

And my eyes follow her, my eyes made fountains.

SONG

One sunny time in May

When lambs were sporting,

The sap ran in the spray

And I went courting,

And all the apple boughs

Were bright with blossom,

I picked an early rose

For my love's bosom.

And then I met her friend,

Down by the water,

Who cried "She's met her end,

That gray-eyed daughter;

That voice of hers is stilled

Her beauty broken."

O me, my love is killed,

My love unspoken.

She was too sweet, too dear,

To die so cruel,

O Death, why leave me here

And take my jewel?

Her voice went to the bone,

So true, so ringing,

And now I go alone,

Winter or springing.

THE BALLAD OF SIR BORS

Would I could win some quiet and rest, and a little ease,

In the cool grey hush of the dusk, in the dim green place of the trees,

Where the birds are singing, singing, singing, crying aloud

The song of the red, red rose that blossoms beyond the seas.

Would I could see it, the rose, when the light begins to fail,

And a lone white star in the West is glimmering on the mail;

The red, red passionate rose of the sacred blood of the Christ,

In the shining chalice of God, the cup of the Holy Grail.

The dusk comes gathering grey, and the darkness dims the West,

The oxen low to the byre, and all bells ring to rest;

But I ride over the moors, for the dusk still bides and waits,

That brims my soul with the glow of the rose that ends the Quest.

My horse is spavined and ribbed, and his bones come through his hide,

My sword is rotten with rust, but I shake the reins and ride,

For the bright white birds of God that nest in the rose have called,

And never a township now is a town where I can bide.

It will happen at last, at dusk, as my horse limps down the fell,

A star will glow like a note God strikes on a silver bell,

And the bright white birds of God will carry my soul to Christ,

And the sight of the Rose, the Rose, will pay for the years of hell.

SPANISH WATERS

Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are ringing in my ears,

Like a slow sweet piece of music from the grey forgotten years;

Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bringing weary thoughts to me

Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be.

There's a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and it never stops to roar,

And it's there we came to anchor, and it's there we went ashore,

Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags of rotting trees,

Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up by the seas.

We anchored at Los Muertos when the dipping sun was red,

We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of Nigger Head;

And before the mist was on the Cay, before the day was done,

We were all ashore on Muertos with the gold that we had won.

We bore it through the marshes in a half-score battered chests,

Sinking, in the sucking quagmires, to the sunburn on our breasts,

Heaving over tree-trunks, gasping, damning at the flies and heat,

Longing for a long drink, out of silver, in the ship's cool lazareet.

The moon came white and ghostly as we laid the treasure down,

There was gear there'd make a beggarman as rich as Lima Town,

Copper charms and silver trinkets from the chests of Spanish crews,

Gold doubloons and double moydores, louis d'ors and portagues,

Clumsy yellow-metal earrings from the Indians of Brazil,

Uncut emeralds out of Rio, bezoar stones from Guayaquil;

Silver, in the crude and fashioned, pots of old Arica bronze,

Jewels from the bones of Incas desecrated by the Dons.

We smoothed the place with mattocks, and we took and blazed the tree,

Which marks yon where the gear is hid that none will ever see,

And we laid aboard the ship again, and south away we steers,

Through the loud surf of Los Muertos which is beating in my ears.

I'm the last alive that knows it. All the rest have gone their ways

Killed, or died, or come to anchor in the old Mulatas Cays,

And I go singing, fiddling, old and starved and in despair,

And I know where all that gold is hid, if I were only there.

It's not the way to end it all. I'm old, and nearly blind,

And an old man's past's a strange thing, for it never leaves his mind.

And I see in dreams, awhiles, the beach, the sun's disc dipping red,

And the tall ship, under topsails, swaying in past Nigger Head.

I'd be glad to step ashore there. Glad to take a pick and go

To the lone blazed coco-palm tree in the place no others know,

And lift the gold and silver that has mouldered there for years

By the loud surf of Los Muertos which is beating in my ears.

CARGOES

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory,

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,

Emeralds, amethysts,

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

CAPTAIN STRATTON'S FANCY

Oh some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white,

And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight;

But rum alone's the tipple, and the heart's delight

Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French,

And some'll swallow tay and stuff fit only for a wench;

But I'm for right Jamaica till I roll beneath the bench,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are for the lily, and some are for the rose,

But I am for the sugar-cane that in Jamaica grows;

For it's that that makes the bonny drink to warm my copper nose,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are fond of fiddles, and a song well sung,

And some are all for music for to lilt upon the tongue;

But mouths were made for tankards, and for sucking at the bung,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are fond of dancing, and some are fond of dice,

And some are all for red lips, and pretty lasses' eyes;

But a right Jamaica puncheon is a finer prize

To the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some that's good and godly ones they hold that it's a sin

To troll the jolly bowl around, and let the dollars spin;

But I'm for toleration and for drinking at an inn,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are sad and wretched folk that go in silken suits,

And there's a mort of wicked rogues that live in good reputes;

So I'm for drinking honestly, and dying in my boots,

Like an old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

AN OLD SONG RE-SUNG

I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing, a-sailing,

With emeralds and rubies and sapphires in her hold;

And a bosun in a blue coat bawling at the railing,

Piping through a silver call that had a chain of gold;

The summer wind was failing and the tall ship rolled.

I saw a ship a-steering, a-steering, a-steering,

With roses in red thread worked upon her sails;

With sacks of purple amethysts, the spoils of buccaneering,

Skins of musky yellow wine, and silks in bales,

Her merry men were cheering, hauling on the brails.

I saw a ship a-sinking, a-sinking, a-sinking,

With glittering sea-water splashing on her decks,

With seamen in her spirit-room singing songs and drinking,

Pulling claret bottles down, and knocking off the necks,

The broken glass was chinking as she sank among the wrecks.

ST. MARY'S BELLS

It's pleasant in Holy Mary

By San Marie lagoon,

The bells they chime and jingle

From dawn to afternoon.

They rhyme and chime and mingle,

They pulse and boom and beat,

And the laughing bells are gentle

And the mournful bells are sweet.

Oh, who are the men that ring them,

The bells of San Marie,

Oh, who but sonsie seamen

Come in from over sea,

And merrily in the belfries

They rock and sway and hale,

And send the bells a-jangle,

And down the lusty ale.

It's pleasant in Holy Mary

To hear the beaten bells

Come booming into music,

Which throbs, and clangs, and swells,

From sunset till the daybreak,

From dawn to afternoon.

In port of Holy Mary

On San Marie lagoon.

LONDON TOWN

Oh London Town's a fine town, and London sights are rare,

And London ale is right ale, and brisk's the London air,

And busily goes the world there, but crafty grows the mind,

And London Town of all towns I'm glad to leave behind.

Then hey for croft and hop-yard, and hill, and field, and pond,

With Breden Hill before me and Malvern Hill beyond.

The hawthorn white i' the hedgerow, and all the spring's attire

In the comely land of Teme and Lugg, and Clent, and Clee, and Wyre.

Oh London girls are brave girls, in silk and cloth o' gold,

And London shops are rare shops, where gallant things are sold,

And bonnily clinks the gold there, but drowsily blinks the eye,

And London Town of all towns I'm glad to hurry by.

Then, hey for covert and woodland, and ash and elm and oak,

Tewkesbury inns, and Malvern roofs, and Worcester chimney smoke,

The apple trees in the orchard, the cattle in the byre,

And all the land from Ludlow town to Bredon church's spire.

Oh London tunes are new tunes, and London books are wise,

And London plays are rare plays, and fine to country eyes,

But craftily fares the knave there, and wickedly fares the Jew,

And London Town of all towns I'm glad to hurry through.

So hey for the road, the west road, by mill and forge and fold,

Scent of the fern and song of the lark by brook, and field, and wold,

To the comely folk at the hearth-stone and the talk beside the fire,

In the hearty land, where I was bred, my land of heart's desire.

THE EMIGRANT

Going by Daly's shanty I heard the boys within

Dancing the Spanish hornpipe to Driscoll's violin,

I heard the sea-boots shaking the rough planks of the floor,

But I was going westward, I hadn't heart for more.

All down the windy village the noise rang in my ears,

Old sea boots stamping, shuffling, it brought the bitter tears,

The old tune piped and quavered, the lilts came clear and strong,

But I was going westward, I couldn't join the song.

There were the grey stone houses, the night wind blowing keen,

The hill-sides pale with moonlight, the young corn springing green,

The hearth nooks lit and kindly, with dear friends good to see,

But I was going westward, and the ship waited me.

PORT OF HOLY PETER

The blue laguna rocks and quivers,

Dull gurgling eddies twist and spin,

The climate does for people's livers,

It's a nasty place to anchor in

Is Spanish port,

Fever port,

Port of Holy Peter.

The town begins on the sea-beaches,

And the town's mad with the stinging flies,

The drinking water's mostly leeches,

It's a far remove from Paradise

Is Spanish port,

Fever port,

Port of Holy Peter.

There's sand-bagging and throat-slitting,

And quiet graves in the sea same,

Stabbing, of course, and rum-hitting,

Dirt, and drink, and stink, and crime,

In Spanish port,

Fever port,

Port of Holy Peter.

All the day the wind's blowing

From the sick swamp below the hills,

All the night the plague's growing,

And the dawn brings the fever chills,

In Spanish port,

Fever port,

Port of Holy Peter.

You get a thirst there's no slaking,

You get the chills and fever-shakes,

Tongue yellow and head aching,

And then the sleep that never wakes.

And all the year the heat's baking,

The sea rots and the earth quakes,

In Spanish port,

Fever port,

Port of Holy Peter.

BEAUTY

I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills

Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:

I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,

Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;

But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me,

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

THE SEEKERS

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blessed abode,

But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,

For we go seeking a city that we shall never find.

There is no solace on earth for us--for such as we--

Who search for a hidden city that we shall never see.

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain,

And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells,

And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells.

Never the golden city, where radiant people meet,

But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the street.

We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim,

And sunset shows us spires away on the world's rim.

We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day is past and by,

Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of the sky.

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode,

But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

PRAYER

When the last sea is sailed, when the last shallow's charted,

When the last field is reaped, and the last harvest stored,

When the last fire is out and the last guest departed,

Grant the last prayer that I shall pray, be good to me, O Lord.

And let me pass in a night at sea, a night of storm and thunder,

In the loud crying of the wind through sail and rope and spar,

Send me a ninth great peaceful wave to drown and roll me under

To the cold tunny-fish's home where the drowned galleons are.

And in the dim green quiet place far out of sight and hearing,

Grant I may hear at whiles the wash and thresh of the sea-foam

About the fine keen bows of the stately clippers steering

Towards the lone northern star and the fair ports of home.

DAWN

The dawn comes cold: the haystack smokes,

The green twigs crackle in the fire,

The dew is dripping from the oaks,

And sleepy men bear milking-yokes

Slowly towards the cattle-byre.

Down in the town a clock strikes six,

The grey east heaven burns and glows,

The dew shines on the thatch of ricks,

A slow old crone comes gathering sticks,

The red cock in the ox-yard crows.

Beyond the stack where we have lain

The road runs twisted like a snake

(The white road to the land of Spain),

The road that we must foot again,

Though the feet halt and the heart ache.

LAUGH AND BE MERRY

Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,

Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.

Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.

Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.

Laugh and be merry: remember, in olden time.

God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rhyme,

Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of His mirth,

The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of the earth.

So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky,

Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,

Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured

In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.

Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,

Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,

Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.

Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.

JUNE TWILIGHT

The twilight comes; the sun

Dips down and sets,

The boys have done

Play at the nets.

In a warm golden glow

The woods are steeped.

The shadows grow;

The bat has cheeped.

Sweet smells the new-mown hay;

The mowers pass

Home, each his way,

Through the grass.

The night-wind stirs the fern,

A night-jar spins;

The windows burn

In the inns.

Dusky it grows. The moon!

The dews descend.

Love, can this beauty in our hearts

End?

ROADWAYS

One road leads to London,

One road runs to Wales,

My road leads me seawards

To the white dipping sails.

One road leads to the river,

As it goes singing slow;

My road leads to shipping,

Where the bronzed sailors go.

Leads me, lures me, calls me

To salt green tossing sea;

A road without earth's road-dust

Is the right road for me.

A wet road heaving, shining,

And wild with seagulls' cries,

A mad salt sea-wind blowing

The salt spray in my eyes.

My road calls me, lures me

West, east, south, and north;

Most roads lead men homewards,

My road leads me forth

To add more miles to the tally

Of grey miles left behind,

In quest of that one beauty

God put me here to find.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT

The perfect disc of the sacred moon

Through still blue heaven serenely swims,

And the lone bird's liquid music brims

The peace of the night with a perfect tune.

This is that holiest night of the year

When (the mowers say) may be heard and seen

The ghostly court of the English queen,

Who rides to harry and hunt the deer.

And the woodland creatures cower awake,

A strange unrest is on harts and does,

For the maiden Dian a-hunting goes,

And the trembling deer are afoot in the brake.

They start at a shaken leaf: the sound

Of a dry twig snapped by a squirrel's foot

Is a nameless dread: and to them the hoot

Of a mousing owl is the cry of a hound.

Oh soon the forest will ring with cries,

The dim green coverts will flash: the grass

Will glow as the radiant hunters pass

After the quarry with burning eyes.

The hurrying feet will range unstayed

Of questing goddess and hunted fawn,

Till the east is grey with the sacred dawn,

And the red cock wakens the milking maid.

THE HARPER'S SONG

This sweetness trembling from the strings

The music of my troublous lute

Hath timed Herodias' daughter's foot;

Setting a-clink her ankle-rings

Whenas she danced to feasted kings.

Where gemmed apparel burned and caught

The sunset 'neath the golden dome,

To the dark beauties of old Rome

My sorrowful lute hath haply brought

Sad memories sweet with tender thought.

When night had fallen and lights and fires

Were darkened in the homes of men,

Some sighing echo stirred:--and then

The old cunning wakened from the wires

The old sorrows and the old desires.

Dead Kings in long forgotten lands,

And all dead beauteous women; some

Whose pride imperial hath become

Old armour rusting in the sands

And shards of iron in dusty hands,

Have heard my lyre's soft rise and fall

Go trembling down the paven ways,

Till every heart was all ablaze--

Hasty each foot--to obey the call

To triumph or to funeral.

Could I begin again the slow

Sweet mournful music filled with tears,

Surely the old, dead, dusty ears

Would hear; the old drowsy eyes would glow,

Old memories come; old hopes and fears,

And time restore the long ago.

THE GENTLE LADY

So beautiful, so dainty-sweet,

So like a lyre's delightful touch--

A beauty perfect, ripe, complete

That art's own hand could only smutch

And nature's self not better much.

So beautiful, so purely wrought,

Like a fair missal penned with hymns,

So gentle, so surpassing thought--

A beauteous soul in lovely limbs,

A lantern that an angel trims.

So simple-sweet, without a sin,

Like gentle music gently timed,

Like rhyme-words coming aptly in,

To round a mooned poem rhymed

To tunes the laughing bells have chimed.

THE DEAD KNIGHT

The cleanly rush of the mountain air,

And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees,

Are the only things that wander there.

The pitiful bones are laid at ease,

The grass has grown in his tangled hair,

And a rambling bramble binds his knees.

To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell,

The only requiem bells that rang

Were the harebell and the heather bell.

Hushed he is with the holy spell

In the gentle hymn the wind sang,

And he lies quiet, and sleeps well.

He is bleached and blanched with the summer sun;

The misty rain and the cold dew

Have altered him from the kingly one

Whom his lady loved, and his men knew,

And dwindled him to a skeleton.

The vetches have twined about his bones,

The straggling ivy twists and creeps

In his eye-sockets: the nettle keeps

Vigil about him while he sleeps.

Over his body the wind moans

With a dreary tune throughout the day,

In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin

As the gulls' cry, as the cry in the bay,

The mournful word the seas say

When tides are wandering out or in.

SORROW OF MYDATH

Weary the cry of the wind is, weary the sea,

Weary the heart and the mind and the body of me,

Would I were out of it, done with it, would I could be

A white gull crying along the desolate sands.

Outcast, derelict soul in a body accurst,

Standing drenched with the spindrift, standing athirst,

For the cool green waves of death to arise and burst

In a tide of quiet for me on the desolate sands.

Would that the waves and the long white hair of the spray

Would gather in splendid terror, and blot me away

To the sunless place of the wrecks where the waters sway

Gently, dreamily, quietly over desolate sands.

TWILIGHT

Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, and the rooks cry and call.

Down in the valley the lamps, and the mist, and a star over all,

There by the rick, where they thresh, is the drone at an end,

Twilight it is, and I travel the road with my friend.

I think of the friends who are dead, who were dear long ago in the past,

Beautiful friends who are dead, though I know that death cannot last;

Friends with the beautiful eyes that the dust has defiled,

Beautiful souls who were gentle when I was a child.

INVOCATION

O wanderer into many brains,

O spark the emperor's purple hides,

You sow the dusk with fiery grains

When the gold horseman rides.

O beauty on the darkness hurled,

Be it through me you shame the world.

POSTED AS MISSING

Under all her topsails she trembled like a stag,

The wind made a ripple in her bonny red flag;

They cheered her from the shore and they cheered her from the pier,

And under all her topsails she trembled like a deer.

So she passed swaying, where the green seas run,

Her wind-steadied topsails were stately in the sun;

There was glitter on the water from her red port light,

So she passed swaying, till she was out of sight.

Long and long ago it was, a weary time it is,

The bones of her sailor-men are coral plants by this;

Coral plants, and shark-weed, and a mermaid's comb,

And if the fishers net them they never bring them home.

It's rough on sailors' women. They have to mangle hard,

And stitch at dungarees till their finger-ends are scarred,

Thinking of the sailor-men who sang among the crowd,

Hoisting of her topsails when she sailed so proud.

A CREED

I hold that when a person dies

His soul returns again to earth;

Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise

Another mother gives him birth.

With sturdier limbs and brighter brain

The old soul takes the roads again.

Such is my own belief and trust;

This hand, this hand that holds the pen,

Has many a hundred times been dust

And turned, as dust, to dust again;

These eyes of mine have blinked and shone

In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.

All that I rightly think or do,

Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,

Is curse or blessing justly due

For sloth or effort in the past.

My life's a statement of the sum

Of vice indulged, or overcome.

I know that in my lives to be

My sorry heart will ache and burn,

And worship, unavailingly,

The woman whom I used to spurn,

And shake to see another have

The love I spurned, the love she gave.

And I shall know, in angry words,

In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,

A carrion flock of homing-birds,

The gibes and scorns I uttered here.

The brave word that I failed to speak

Will brand me dastard on the cheek.

And as I wander on the roads

I shall be helped and healed and blessed;

Dear words shall cheer and be as goads

To urge to heights before unguessed.

My road shall be the road I made;

All that I gave shall be repaid.

So shall I fight, so shall I tread,

In this long war beneath the stars;

So shall a glory wreathe my head,

So shall I faint and show the scars,

Until this case, this clogging mould,

Be smithied all to kingly gold.

WHEN BONY DEATH

When bony Death has chilled her gentle blood,

And dimmed the brightness of her wistful eyes,

And changed her glorious beauty into mud

By his old skill in hateful wizardries;

When an old lichened marble strives to tell

How sweet a grace, how red a lip was hers;

When rheumy grey-beards say, "I knew her well,"

Showing the grave to curious worshippers;

When all the roses that she sowed in me

Have dripped their crimson petals and decayed,

Leaving no greenery on any tree

That her dear hands in my heart's garden laid,

Then grant, old Time, to my green mouldering skull,

These songs may keep her memory beautiful.

THE WEST WIND

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;

I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.

For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,

And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.

It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,

Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine.

There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,

And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.

"Will you not come home, brother? You have been long away.

It's April, and blossom time, and white is the spray:

And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain,

Will you not come home, brother, home to us again?

The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run;

It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.

It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain,

To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.

Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,

So will you not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?

I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,"

Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread

To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,

To the violets and the brown brooks and the thrushes' song

In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.

HER HEART

Her heart is always doing lovely things,

Filling my wintry mind with simple flowers;

Playing sweet tunes on my untuned strings,

Delighting all my undelightful hours.

She plays me like a lute, what tune she will,

No string in me but trembles at her touch,

Shakes into sacred music, or is still,

Trembles or stops, or swells, her skill is such.

And in the dusty tavern of my soul

Where filthy lusts drink witches' brew for wine,

Her gentle hand still keeps me from the bowl,

Still keeps me man, saves me from being swine.

All grace in me, all sweetness in my verse,

Is hers, is my dear girl's, and only hers.

BEING HER FRIEND

Being her friend, I do not care, not I,

How gods or men may wrong me, beat me down;

Her word's sufficient star to travel by,

I count her quiet praise sufficient crown.

Being her friend, I do not covet gold,

Save for a royal gift to give her pleasure;

To sit with her, and have her hand to hold,

Is wealth, I think, surpassing minted treasure.

Being her friend, I only covet art,

A white pure flame to search me as I trace

In crooked letters from a throbbing heart

The hymn to beauty written on her face.

FRAGMENTS

Troy Town is covered up with weeds,

The rabbits and the pismires brood

On broken gold, and shards, and beads

Where Priam's ancient palace stood.

The floors of many a gallant house

Are matted with the roots of grass;

The glow-worm and the nimble mouse

Among her ruins flit and pass.

And there, in orts of blackened bone,

The widowed Trojan beauties lie,

And Simois babbles over stone

And waps and gurgles to the sky.

Once there were merry days in Troy,

Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals,

The passing chariots did annoy

The sunning housewives at their wheels.

And many a lovely Trojan maid

Set Trojan lads to lovely things;

The game of life was nobly played,

They played the game like Queens and Kings.

So that, when Troy had greatly passed

In one red roaring fiery coal,

The courts the Grecians overcast

Became a city in the soul.

In some green island of the sea,

Where now the shadowy coral grows

In pride and pomp and empery

The courts of old Atlantis rose.

In many a glittering house of glass

The Atlanteans wandered there;

The paleness of their faces was

Like ivory, so pale they were.

And hushed they were, no noise of words

In those bright cities ever rang;

Only their thoughts, like golden birds,

About their chambers thrilled and sang.

They knew all wisdom, for they knew

The souls of those Egyptian Kings

Who learned, in ancient Babilu,

The beauty of immortal things.

They knew all beauty--when they thought

The air chimed like a stricken lyre,

The elemental birds were wrought,

The golden birds became a fire.

And straight to busy camps and marts

The singing flames were swiftly gone;

The trembling leaves of human hearts

Hid boughs for them to perch upon.

And men in desert places, men

Abandoned, broken, sick with fears,

Rose singing, swung their swords agen,

And laughed and died among the spears.

The green and greedy seas have drowned

That city's glittering walls and towers,

Her sunken minarets are crowned

With red and russet water-flowers.

In towers and rooms and golden courts

The shadowy coral lifts her sprays;

The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts,

The shark doth haunt her hidden ways.

But, at the falling of the tide,

The golden birds still sing and gleam,

The Atlanteans have not died,

Immortal things still give us dream.

The dream that fires man's heart to make,

To build, to do, to sing or say

A beauty Death can never take,

An Adam from the crumbled clay.

BORN FOR NOUGHT ELSE

Born for nought else, for nothing but for this,

To watch the soft blood throbbing in her throat,

To think how comely sweet her body is,

And learn the poem of her face by rote.

Born for nought else but to attempt a rhyme

That shall describe her womanhood aright,

And make her holy to the end of Time,

And be my soul's acquittal in God's sight.

Born for nought else but to expressly mark

The music of her dear delicious ways;

Born but to perish meanly in the dark,

Yet born to be the man to sing her praise.

Born for nought else: there is a spirit tells

My lot's a King's, being born for nothing else.

TEWKESBURY ROAD

It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,

Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither nor why;

Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air,

Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.

And to halt at the chattering brook, in the tall green fern at the brink

Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white;

Where the shy-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink

When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.

O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,

Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words;

And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth

At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.

THE DEATH ROOMS

My soul has many an old decaying room

Hung with the ragged arras of the past,

Where startled faces flicker in the gloom,

And horrid whispers set the cheek aghast.

Those dropping rooms are haunted by a death,

A something like a worm gnawing a brain,

That bids me heed what bitter lesson saith

The blind wind beating on the window-pane.

None dwells in those old rooms: none ever can--

I pass them through at night with hidden head;

Lock'd rotting rooms her eyes must never scan,

Floors that her blessed feet must never tread.

Haunted old rooms: rooms she must never know,

Where death-ticks knock and mouldering panels glow.

IGNORANCE

Since I have learned Love's shining alphabet,

And spelled in ink what's writ in me in flame,

And borne her sacred image richly set

Here in my heart to keep me quit of shame;

Since I have learned how wise and passing wise

Is the dear friend whose beauty I extol,

And know how sweet a soul looks through the eyes,

That are so pure a window to her soul;

Since I have learned how rare a woman shows

As much in all she does as in her looks,

And seen the beauty of her shame the rose,

And dim the beauty writ about in books;

All I have learned, and can learn, shows me this--

How scant, how slight, my knowledge of her is.

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

THE WATCH IN THE WOOD

When Death has laid her in his quietude,

And dimmed the glow of her benignant star,

Her tired limbs shall rest within a wood,

In a green glade where oaks and beeches are,

Where the shy fawns, the pretty fawns, the deer,

With mild brown eyes shall view her spirit's husk;

The sleeping woman of her will appear,

The maiden Dian shining through the dusk.

And, when the stars are white as twilight fails,

And the green leaves are hushed, and the winds swoon,

The calm pure thrilling throats of nightingales

Shall hymn her sleeping beauty to the moon.

All the woods hushed--save for a dripping rose,

All the woods dun--save where a glow-worm glows.

Brimming the quiet woods with holiness,

The lone brown birds will hymn her till the dawn,

The delicate, shy, dappled deer will press

Soft pitying muzzles on her swathed lawn.

The little pretty rabbits running by.

Will pause among the dewy grass to peep,

Their thudding hearts affrighted to espy

The maiden Dian lying there asleep.

Brown, lustrous, placid eyes of sylvan things

Will wonder at the quiet in her face,

While from the thorny branch the singer brings

Beauty and peace to that immortal place.

Until the grey dawn sets the woods astir

The pure birds' thrilling psalm will mourn for her.

C. L. M.

In the dark womb where I began

My mother's life made me a man.

Through all the months of human birth

Her beauty fed my common earth.

I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir,

But through the death of some of her.

Down in the darkness of the grave

She cannot see the life she gave.

For all her love, she cannot tell

Whether I use it ill or well,

Nor knock at dusty doors to find

Her beauty dusty in the mind.

If the grave's gates could be undone,

She would not know her little son,

I am so grown. If we should meet

She would pass by me in the street,

Unless my soul's face let her see

My sense of what she did for me.

What have I done to keep in mind

My debt to her and womankind?

What woman's happier life repays

Her for those months of wretched days?

For all my mouthless body leeched

Ere Birth's releasing hell was reached?

What have I done, or tried, or said

In thanks to that dear woman dead?

Men triumph over women still,

Men trample women's rights at will,

And man's lust roves the world untamed.

* * * * *

O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed.

WASTE

No rose but fades: no glory but must pass:

No hue but dims: no precious silk but frets.

Her beauty must go underneath the grass,

Under the long roots of the violets.

O, many glowing beauties Time has hid

In that dark, blotting box the villain sends.

He covers over with a coffin-lid

Mothers and sons, and foes and lovely friends.

Maids that were redly-lipped and comely-skinned,

Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than clay,

All are as blossoms blowing down the wind,

Things the old envious villain sweeps away.

And though the mutterer laughs and church bells toll,

Death brings another April to the soul.

THIRD MATE

All the sheets are clacking, all the blocks are whining,

The sails are frozen stiff and the wetted decks are shining;

The reef's in the topsails, and it's coming on to blow,

And I think of the dear girl I left long ago.

Grey were her eyes, and her hair was long and bonny,

Golden was her hair, like the wild bees' honey.

And I was but a dog, and a mad one to despise,

The gold of her hair and the grey of her eyes.

There's the sea before me, and my home's behind me,

And beyond there the strange lands where nobody will mind me,

No one but the girls with the paint upon their cheeks,

Who sell away their beauty to whomsoever seeks.

There'll be drink and women there, and songs and laughter,

Peace from what is past and from all that follows after;

And a fellow will forget how a woman lies awake,

Lonely in the night watch crying for his sake.

Black it blows and bad and it howls like slaughter,

And the ship she shudders as she takes the water.

Hissing flies the spindrift like a wind-blown smoke,

And I think of a woman and a heart I broke.

THE WILD DUCK

Twilight. Red in the west.

Dimness. A glow on the wood.

The teams plod home to rest.

The wild duck come to glean.

O souls not understood,

What a wild cry in the pool;

What things have the farm ducks seen

That they cry so--huddle and cry?

Only the soul that goes.

Eager. Eager. Flying.

Over the globe of the moon,

Over the wood that glows.

Wings linked. Necks a-strain,

A rush and a wild crying.

* * *

A cry of the long pain

In the reeds of a steel lagoon.

In a land that no man knows.

CHRISTMAS, 1903

O, the sea breeze will be steady, and the tall ship's going trim,

And the dark blue skies are paling, and the white stars burning dim;

The long night watch is over, and the long sea-roving done,

And yonder light is the Start Point light, and yonder comes the sun.

O, we have been with the Spaniards, and far and long on the sea;

But there are the twisted chimneys, and the gnarled old inns on the quay.

The wind blows keen as the day breaks, the roofs are white with the rime,

And the church-bells ring as the sun comes up to call men in to Prime.

The church-bells rock and jangle, and there is peace on the earth.

Peace and good will and plenty and Christmas games and mirth.

O, the gold glints bright on the wind-vane as it shifts above the squire's house,

And the water of the bar of Salcombe is muttering about the bows.

O, the salt sea tide of Salcombe, it wrinkles into wisps of foam,

And the church-bells ring in Salcombe to ring poor sailors home.

The belfry rocks as the bells ring, the chimes are merry as a song,

They ring home wandering sailors who have been homeless long.

THE WORD

My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,

And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,

May we be rich in love's refined gold,

May love's gold coin be current with us still.

May love be sweeter for the vanished days,

And your most perfect beauty still as dear

As when your troubled singer stood at gaze

In the dear March of a most sacred year.

May what we are be all we might have been,

And that potential, perfect, O my friend,

And may there still be many sheafs to glean

In our love's acre, comrade, till the end.

And may we find, when ended is the page,

Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.

* * * * *

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Fires

By W. W. GIBSON

Author of "Daily Bread," "Womenkind," etc.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Daily Bread

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Womenkind

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Table of Contents

Dauber

Biography

Ships

Truth

They closed her Eyes

The Harp

I saw the Ramparts

That Blessed Sunlight

Song

The Ballad of Sir Bors

Spanish Waters

Cargoes

Captain Stratton's Fancy

An Old Song re-sung

St. Mary's Bells

London Town

The Emigrant

Port of Holy Peter

Beauty

The Seekers

Prayer

Dawn

Laugh and be Merry

June Twilight

Roadways

Midsummer Night

The Harper's Song

The Gentle Lady

The Dead Knight

Sorrow of Mydath

Twilight

Invocation

Posted as Missing

A Creed

When Bony Death

The West Wind

Her Heart

Being her Friend

Fragments

Born for Nought Else

Tewkesbury Road

The Death Rooms

Ignorance

Sea Fever

The Watch in the Wood

C. L. M.

Waste

Third Mate

The Wild Duck

Christmas, 1903