Selections from PHILIP THE KING

Messenger. This gold chain ... Bears the twelve badges of the strength of Spain Once linked in glory, Philip, but now loosed. (Detaching link from link.) Castilla, Leon, Aragon, and these, Palestine, Portugal, the Sicilies, Navarre, Granada, the Valencian State, The Indies, East and West, the Archducate, The Western Mainland in the Ocean Sea. Those who upheld their strength have ceased to be. I, who am dying, King, have seen their graves. Philip, your Navy is beneath the waves. Philip. He who in bounty gives in wisdom takes. Messenger. O King, forgive me, for my spirit breaks; I saw those beaches where the Grange descends White with unburied corpses of stripped friends. Philip. I grieve that Spain’s disaster brings such loss. Messenger. From Pentland to the Groyne the tempests toss Unshriven Spaniards driving with the tide. They were my lovely friends and they have died, Far from wind-broken Biscay, far from home, With no anointing chrism but the foam. Philip. The dead will rise from unsuspected slime; God’s chosen will be gathered in God’s time. Messenger. King, they died helpless; our unwieldy fleet Made such a target to the English guns That we were riddled through like sifted wheat. We never came to grappling with them once. They raked us from a distance, and then ran. Each village throughout Spain has lost a man; The widows in the seaports fill the streets. Philip. Uncertain chance decides the fate of fleets. Messenger. Now the North Sea is haunted for all time By miserable souls whose dying words Cursed the too proud adventure as a crime. Our broken galleons house the gannet-birds. The Irish burn our Captain’s bones for lime. O misery that the might of England wrought! Philip. Christ is the only remedy for thought When the mind sickens. We are pieces played, Not moving as we will, but as we are made; Beaten and spurred at times like stubborn steeds, That we may go God’s way. Your spirit bleeds, Having been proved in trouble past her strength. Give me the roll in all its ghastly length. Which of my friends survive, if any live? Messenger. Some have survived, but all are fugitive. Your Admiral in command is living still; Michæl Oquendo too, though he is ill, Dying of broken heart and bitter shame. Valdes is prisoner, Manrique the same. Philip. God willed the matter; they are not to blame. Thank God that they are living. Name the rest. Messenger. They are all dead ... with him you loved the best. Philip. I dreamed De Leyva died, so it is true? Messenger. Drowned on the Irish coast with all his crew. After enduring dying many days The sea has given him quiet. Many ways Lead men to death, and he a hard one trod, Bearing much misery, like a knight of God. Philip. Amen. Go on. Messenger. Hugh de Moncada died, Shot in his burning ship by Calais side, Cheering his men to save her. Pimentel Sank in a galleon shambled like a hell Rather than yield, and in a whirl of flames Pedro Mendoza, Captain of St. James, Stood with Don Philip thrusting boarders back Till their Toledan armour was burnt black, And both their helms ran blood. And there they fell, Shot down to bleed to death. They perished well, Happy to die in battle for their King Before defeat had fallen on their friends; Happier than most, for where the merrows sing Paredes and his brother met their ends, And Don Alarcon, cast alive ashore, Was killed and stripped and hanged upon a tree. And young Mendoza, whom the flagship bore, Died of starvation and of misery. But hundreds perished, King; why mention these? Battle and hunger, heart-break, and the seas Have overwhelmed the chivalry of Spain. Philip. Misfortune, after effort, brings no stain. Perhaps I underjudged the English fleet. How was it that the Spaniards met defeat? What evil fortune brought about our fall? Messenger. Their sailors and their cannon did it all. Philip. Yet when the fleet reached Calais all went well. Messenger. Our woes began there. Philip. Tell me what befell. Messenger. We were to ship the troops in Calais Road; They lay encamped, prepared to go aboard. To windward still the English fleet abode— Still as in port when peace has been restored. The wind and sea were fair, We lay at anchor there; The stars burned in the air, The men were sleeping, When in the midnight dark Our watchman saw a spark Suddenly light a bark With long flames leaping. Then, as they stood amazed, Others and other blazed; Then terror set them crazed, They ran down screaming: “Fire-ships are coming! Wake! Cast loose, for Jesus’ sake! Eight fire-ships come from Drake— Look at their gleaming!” Roused in the dark from bed, We saw the fire show red, And instant panic spread Through troops and sailors; They swarmed on deck unclad, They did what terror bade, King, they were like the mad Escaped from jailers. Some prayed for mercy, some Rang bells or beat the drum, As though despair had come At hell’s contriving; Captains with terror pale Screamed through the dark their hail, “Cut cable, loose the sail, And set all driving!” Heading all ways at once, Grinding each other’s guns, Our blundering galleons Athwart-hawse galleys, Timbers and plankings cleft, And half our tackling reft, Your grand Armada left The roads of Calais. Weary and overwrought We strove to make all taut; But when the morning brought The dawn to light us, Drake, with the weather gage, Made signal to engage, And, like a pard in rage, Bore down to fight us. Nobly the English line Trampled the bubbled brine, We heard the gun-trucks whine To the taut laniard. Onwards we saw them forge, White-billowing at the gorge. “On, on!” they cried, “St. George! Down with the Spaniard!” From their van squadron broke A withering battle-stroke, Tearing our plankèd oak By straiks asunder, Blasting the wood like rot With such a hail of shot, So constant and so hot It beat us under. The English would not close; They fought us as they chose, Dealing us deadly blows For seven hours. Lords of our chiefest rank The bitter billow drank, For there the English sank Three ships of ours. * * * * Then the wind forced us northward from the fight; We could not ship the army nor return; We held the sea in trouble through the night, Watching the English signals blink and burn. The English in a dim cloud kept astern; All night they signalled, while our shattered ships Huddled like beasts beneath the drovers’ whips. * * * * At dawn the same wind held; we could not strive. The English drove us north as herdsmen drive. * * * * Under our tattered flags, With rigging cut to rags, Our ships like stricken stags Were heaped and hounded. Caught by the unknown tide, With neither chart nor guide, We fouled the Holland side, Where four more grounded. Our water-casks were burst, The horses died of thirst, The wounded raved and curst, Uncared, untended. All night we heard the crying Of lonely shipmates dying; We had to leave them lying. So the fight ended. Philip. God gives His victory as He wills. But this Was not complete destruction. What thing worse Came to destroy you? Messenger. An avenging curse, Due for old sins, destroyed us. Philip. Tell the tale. Messenger. O King, when morning dawned it blew a gale, But still the English followed, and we fled Till breakers made the dirty waters pale. We saw the Zeeland sandbanks right ahead, Blind in a whirling spray that gave us dread; For we were blown there, and the water shoaled. The crying of the leadsmen at the lead, Calling the soundings, were our death-bells tolled. We drifted down to death upon the sands; The English drew away to watch us drown; We saw the bitter breakers with grey hands Tear the dead body of the sandbank brown. We could do nothing, so we drifted down Singing the psalms for death; we who had been Lords of the sea and knights of great renown, Doomed to be strangled by a death unclean. Philip. So there the ships were wrecked? Messenger. Time had not struck. O King, we learned how blessed mercy saves: Even as our forefoot grounded on the muck, Tripping us up to drown us in the waves, A sudden windshift snatched us from our graves And drove us north; and now another woe, Tempest unending, beat our ships to staves— A never-dying gale with frost and snow. Now our hearts failed, for food and water failed; The men fell sick by troops, the wounded died. They washed about the wet decks as we sailed For want of strength to lift them overside. Desolate seas we sailed, so grim, so wide, That ship by ship our comrades disappeared. With neither sun nor star to be a guide, Like spirits of the wretched dead we steered. Till, having beaten through the Pentland Pass, We saw the Irish surf, with mists of spray Blowing far inland, blasting trees and grass, And gave God thanks, for we espied a bay Safe, with bright water running down the clay— A running brook where we could drink and drink. But drawing near, our ships were cast away, Bilged on the rocks; we saw our comrades sink.... Or worse: for those the breakers cast ashore The Irish killed and stripped; their bodies white Lay naked to the wolves—yea, sixty score— All down the windy beach, a piteous sight. The savage Irish watched by bonfire light Lest more should come ashore; we heard them there Screaming the bloody news of their delight. Then we abandoned hope and new despair. And now the fleet is sunken in the sea, And all the seamen, all the might of Spain, Are dead, O King, and out of misery, Never to drag at frozen ropes again. Never to know defeat, nor feel the pain Of watching dear companions sink and die. Death’s everlasting armistice to the brain Gives their poor griefs quietus; let them lie. I, like a ghost returning from the grave, Come from a stricken ship to tell the news Of Spanish honour which we could not save, Nor win again, nor even die to lose; And since God’s hidden wisdom loves to bruise Those whom He loves, we, trembling in despair, Will watch our griefs to see God’s finger there, And make His will our solace and excuse. Defeat is bitter and the truth is hard— Spain is defeated, England has prevailed; This is the banner which I could not guard, And this the consecrated sword which failed. Do with your dying Captain as you will. (He lays down sword and banner.) Philip. I, from my heart, thank God, from whose great hand I am so helped with power, I can still Set out another fleet against that land. Nor do I think it ill If all the running water takes its course While there are unspent fountains at the source. He sendeth out His word and melteth them. Take back your standard, Captain. As you go, Bid the bells toll and let the clergy come. Then in the city by the strike of drum Proclaim a general fast. In bitter days The soul finds God, God us. (Exit Captain.) Philip (Alone). De Leyva, friend, Whom I shall never see, never again, This misery that I feel is over Spain. O God, beloved God, in pity send That blessed rose among the thorns, an end: Give a bruised spirit peace. (He kneels. A muffled march of the drums.) Curtain.

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.

All day they loitered by the resting ships, Telling their beauties over, taking stock; At night the verdict left my messmates’ lips, “The Wanderer is the finest ship in dock.” I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned, Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean, Saying, “The Wanderer, clipper, outward bound, The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen— “Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail. She sails at sunrise”: but the morrow showed No Wanderer setting forth for me to hail; Far down the stream men pointed where she rode, Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim, Already gone before the stars were gone. I saw her at the sea-line’s smoky rim Grow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on. Soon even her masts were hidden in the haze Beyond the city; she was on her course To trample billows for a hundred days; That afternoon the norther gathered force, Blowing a small snow from a point of east. “Oh, fair for her,” we said, “to take her south.” And in our spirits, as the wind increased, We saw her there, beyond the river mouth, Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark, To glint upon mad water, while the gale Roared like a battle, snapping like a shark, And drunken seamen struggled with the sail. While with sick hearts her mates put out of mind Their little children left astern, ashore, And the gale’s gathering made the darkness blind, Water and air one intermingled roar. Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played, Dancing and singing held our merry crew; The old ship moaned a little as she swayed. It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew! So that at midnight I was called on deck To keep an anchor-watch: I heard the sea Roar past in white procession filled with wreck; Intense bright frosty stars burned over me, And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped, White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock, Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped; Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock. And like a never-dying force, the wind Roared till we shouted with it, roared until Its vast vitality of wrath was thinned, Had beat its fury breathless and was still. By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw, A glorious morning followed: with my friend I climbed the fo’c’s’le-head to see; we saw The waters hurrying shorewards without end. Haze blotted out the river’s lowest reach; Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by, Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech; Out of the dimness others made reply. And as we watched, there came a rush of feet Charging the fo’c’s’le till the hatchway shook. Men all about us thrust their way, or beat, Crying, “The Wanderer! Down the river! Look!” I looked with them towards the dimness; there Gleamed like a spirit striding out of night, A full-rigged ship unutterably fair, Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright. Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool; She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamed That work of man could be so beautiful, In its own presence and in what it seemed. “So, she is putting back again,” I said. “How white with frost her yards are on the fore.” One of the men about me answer made, “That is not frost, but all her sails are tore, “Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale; Her best foul-weather suit gone.” It was true, Her masts were white with rags of tattered sail Many as gannets when the fish are due. Beauty in desolation was her pride, Her crowned array a glory that had been; She faltered tow’rds us like a swan that died, But although ruined she was still a queen. “Put back with all her sails gone,” went the word; Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran, “The sea that stove her boats in killed her third; She has been gutted and has lost a man.” So, as though stepping to a funeral march, She passed defeated homewards whence she came, Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch, A wild bird that misfortune had made tame. She was refitted soon: another took The dead man’s office; then the singers hove Her capstan till the snapping hawsers shook; Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove. Again they towed her seawards, and again We, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim, Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main, And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim; And wished her well, and wondered, as she died, How, when her canvas had been sheeted home, Her quivering length would sweep into her stride, Making the greenness milky with her foam. But when we rose next morning, we discerned Her beauty once again a shattered thing; Towing to dock the Wanderer returned, A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing. A spar was gone, her rigging’s disarray Told of a worst disaster than the last; Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay, Drooping and beating on the broken mast. Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag; Word went among us how the broken spar Had gored her captain like an angry stag, And killed her mate a half-day from the bar. She passed to dock upon the top of flood. An old man near me shook his head and swore: “Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood— There’ll be no trusting in her any more.” We thought it truth, and when we saw her there Lying in dock, beyond, across the stream, We would forget that we had called her fair, We thought her murderess and the past a dream. And when she sailed again, we watched in awe, Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned, What evil lurked behind the thing we saw, What strength was there that thus annulled man’s hand, How next its triumph would compel man’s will Into compliance with external Fate, How next the powers would use her to work ill On suffering men; we had not long to wait. For soon the outcry of derision rose, “Here comes the Wanderer!” the expected cry. Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with those Yelled from the shipping as they towed her by. She passed us close, her seamen paid no heed To what was called: they stood, a sullen group, Smoking and spitting, careless of her need, Mocking the orders given from the poop. Her mates and boys were working her; we stared. What was the reason of this strange return, This third annulling of the thing prepared? No outward evil could our eyes discern. Only like someone who has formed a plan Beyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed, Mocked and deserted by the common man, Made half divine to me for having failed. We learned the reason soon; below the town A stay had parted like a snapping reed, “Warning,” the men thought, “not to take her down.” They took the omen, they would not proceed. Days passed before another crew would sign. The Wanderer lay in dock alone, unmanned, Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign, Bound under curses not to leave the land. But under passing Time fear passes too; That terror passed, the sailors’ hearts grew bold. We learned in time that she had found a crew And was bound out and southwards as of old. And in contempt we thought, “A little while Will bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled. It is herself; she cannot change her style; She has the habit now of being foiled.” So when a ship appeared among the haze, We thought, “The Wanderer back again”; but no, No Wanderer showed for many, many days, Her passing lights made other waters glow. But we would often think and talk of her, Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then, Upon what ocean she was Wanderer, Bound to the cities built by foreign men. And one by one our little conclave thinned, Passed into ships and sailed and so away, To drown in some great roaring of the wind, Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune’s prey. And Time went by me making memory dim, Yet still I wondered if the Wanderer fared Still pointing to the unreached ocean’s rim, Brightening the water where her breast was bared. And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships, Hoping to see her well-remembered form Come with a curl of bubbles at her lips Bright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm. I never did, and many years went by, Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve, I watched a gale go roaring through the sky, Making the caldrons of the clouds upheave. Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared, Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire; A byre cock cried aloud that morning neared, The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire. And soon men looked upon a glittering earth, Intensely sparkling like a world new-born; Only to look was spiritual birth, So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn. So bright they were, that one could almost pass Beyond their twinkling to the source, and know The glory pushing in the blade of grass, That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow. That soul was there apparent, not revealed, Unearthly meanings covered every tree, That wet grass grew in an immortal field, Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea. The scarlet berries in the hedge stood out Like revelations but the tongue unknown; Even in the brooks a joy was quick: the trout Rushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone. All of the valley was aloud with brooks; I walked the morning, breasting up the fells, Taking again lost childhood from the rooks, Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells. I had not walked that glittering world before, But up the hill a prompting came to me, “This line of upland runs along the shore: Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea.” And on the instant from beyond away That long familiar sound, a ship’s bell, broke The hush below me in the unseen bay. Old memories came: that inner prompting spoke. And bright above the hedge a seagull’s wings Flashed and were steady upon empty air. “A Power unseen,” I cried, “prepares these things; “Those are her bells, the Wanderer is there.” So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down, I saw a mighty bay’s wind-crinkled blue Ruffling the image of a tranquil town, With lapsing waters glittering as they grew. And near me in the road the shipping swung, So stately and so still in such great peace That like to drooping crests their colours hung, Only their shadows trembled without cease. I did but glance upon those anchored ships. Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain; Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips, Swiftness at pause, the Wanderer come again— Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time, Resting the beauty that no seas could tire, Sparkling, as though the midnight’s rain were rime, Like a man’s thought transfigured into fire. And as I looked, one of her men began To sing some simple tune of Christmas Day; Among her crew the song spread, man to man, Until the singing rang across the bay; And soon in other anchored ships the men Joined in the singing with clear throats, until The farm-boy heard it up the windy glen, Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill. Over the water came the lifted song— Blind pieces in a mighty game we swing; Life’s battle is a conquest for the strong; The meaning shows in the defeated thing.

How still this quiet cornfield is to-night! By an intenser glow the evening falls, Bringing, not darkness, but a deeper light; Among the stooks a partridge covey calls. The windows glitter on the distant hill; Beyond the hedge the sheep-bells in the fold Stumble on sudden music and are still; The forlorn pinewoods droop above the wold. An endless quiet valley reaches out Past the blue hills into the evening sky; Over the stubble, cawing, goes a rout Of rooks from harvest, flagging as they fly. So beautiful it is, I never saw So great a beauty on these English fields, Touched by the twilight’s coming into awe, Ripe to the soul and rich with summer’s yields. * * * * These homes, this valley spread below me here, The rooks, the tilted stacks, the beasts in pen, Have been the heartfelt things, past-speaking dear To unknown generations of dead men, Who, century after century, held these farms, And, looking out to watch the changing sky, Heard, as we hear, the rumours and alarms Of war at hand and danger pressing nigh, And knew, as we know, that the message meant The breaking off of ties, the loss of friends, Death, like a miser getting in his rent, And no new stones laid where the trackway ends, The harvest not yet won, the empty bin, The friendly horses taken from the stalls, The fallow on the hill not yet brought in, The cracks unplastered in the leaking walls, Yet heard the news, and went discouraged home, And brooded by the fire with heavy mind, With such dumb loving of the Berkshire loam As breaks the dumb hearts of the English kind, Then sadly rose and left the well-loved Downs, And so by ship to sea, and knew no more The fields of home, the byres, the market towns, Nor the dear outline of the English shore, But knew the misery of the soaking trench, The freezing in the rigging, the despair In the revolting second of the wrench When the blind soul is flung upon the air, And died (uncouthly, most) in foreign lands For some idea but dimly understood Of an English city never built by hands Which love of England prompted and made good. * * * * If there be any life beyond the grave, It must be near the men and things we love, Some power of quick suggestion how to save, Touching the living soul as from above, An influence from the Earth from those dead hearts So passionate once, so deep, so truly kind, That in the living child the spirit starts, Feeling companioned still, not left behind. Surely above these fields a spirit broods, A sense of many watchers muttering near, Of the lone Downland with the forlorn woods Loved to the death, inestimably dear, A muttering from beyond the veils of Death From long-dead men, to whom this quiet scene Came among blinding tears with the last breath, The dying soldier’s vision of his queen. All the unspoken worship of those lives Spent in forgotten wars at other calls Glimmers upon these fields where evening drives Beauty like breath, so gently darkness falls, Darkness that makes the meadows holier still. The elm-trees sadden in the hedge, a sigh Moves in the beech-clump on the haunted hill, The rising planets deepen in the sky, And silence broods like spirit on the brae, A glimmering moon begins, the moonlight runs Over the grasses of the ancient way Rutted this morning by the passing guns.

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, their 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 bolthead 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’s 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 Felt 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 coxwains 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, “Give way, come on now!” “On now!” “On now!” “Starboard.” “Port Fore!” “Up with her, Port!” each cutter harboured Ten eye-shut painsick strugglers, “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.

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-gray lovely barque, Her trucks aloft in sun-glow red as blood, Came to an anchor near us on the flood. 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 jib-booms, The Wanderer with great beauty and strange dooms, Liverpool (mightiest then) superb, sublime, The California huge, as slow as Time. The Cutty Sark, the perfect J. T. North, The loveliest barque my city has sent forth. Dainty Redgauntlet, 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 moonsail 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 sun made all 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 smokestacks down the stream, The fair Arabian 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 back-stayed 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 agen.

That blessed sunlight, that once showed to me My way to heaven more plain, more certainly, And with her bright beams 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 on 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.

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 nightlight in a dish Burned on the floor; It threw on the wall The bed’s shadow, And in that shadow One saw some times Drawn in sharp line The body’s shape. The dawn appeared. At its first whiteness, With its thousand noises, The town awoke. Before that contrast Of light and darkness, Of life and strangeness, I thought a moment. My God, how lonely The dead are! On the shoulders of men 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 a candle The guttering. All things there Were so dark and mournful, So cold 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 A last farewell. Crape on their clothes, Her friends and kindred Passed by in line In homage to her. In the last vault, Dark and narrow, The pickaxe opened A niche at one end; They laid her away there. Soon they bricked the place up, And with a gesture Bade grief farewell. Pickaxe on shoulder, The gravedigger, Singing between his teeth, Passed out of sight. The night came down It was all silent. Alone in darkness, I thought a moment— My God, how lonely The dead are! In the dark 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? Or is all vile matter, Rottenness, filthiness? I know not, but There is something—something— Something which gives me Loathing, terror, To leave the dead So alone, so wretched.