Front matter (continued 2)

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. BÉCQUER.

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. BÉCQUER

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 moonéd 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 refinèd 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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