The Story Of A Round-House And Other Poems Part 13

Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking sheave.

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

"Starboard." "Come on." I saw the mids.h.i.+p oar And knew we had done them. "Port Fore." "Starboard." "Now."

I saw bright water spurting at their bow Their c.o.x' 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 pa.s.sions Wears out the nations as a woman fas.h.i.+ons, 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 compa.s.sion and new eyes.

The days that make us happy make us wise.

s.h.i.+PS

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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps.

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 s.h.i.+ps 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, n.o.ble in every line in all their length.

_Ailsa_, _Genista_, s.h.i.+ps, 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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_ pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ps and Fernie Brothers', _Lochs_, _Counties_, _s.h.i.+res_, _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_, n.o.ble, 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 s.h.i.+p-designers, The _Magdalena_, _Puno_, _Potosi_, Lost _Cotopaxi_, all well known to me.

These splendid s.h.i.+ps, 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps That art untouched by softness, all that line Drawn ringing hard to stand the test of brine, That n.o.bleness 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 pa.s.sage as a race of men, Earth will not see such s.h.i.+ps as those again.

TRUTH

Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p my striving made May see night fade.

THEY CLOSED HER EYES

FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO A. BeCQUER.

They closed her eyes, They were still open; They hid her face With a white linen, And, some sobbing, Others in silence, From the sad bedroom All came away.

The night-light in a dish Burned on the floor, It flung on the wall The bed's shadow, And in that shadow One saw sometimes Drawn in sharp line The body's shape.

The day awakened At its first whiteness With its thousand noises; The town awoke Before that contrast Of life and strangeness, Of light and darkness.

I thought a moment _My G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, how lonely_ _The dead are!_

From the high belfry The tongue of iron Clanged, giving out His sad farewell.

c.r.a.pe on their clothes, Her friends and kindred Pa.s.sed 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, Pa.s.sed out of sight.

The night came down; It was all silent, Lost in the shadows I thought a moment.

_My G.o.d, 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.