The Ride to the Lady, and Other Poems Part 3

Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's long dead,-- I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead; Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife, And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!

THE STORY OF THE "ORIENT"

'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory, English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door, Florid-faced, the man-o'-war's-man told his white-head boy the story, n.o.ble story of Aboukir, told a hundred times before.

"Here, the _Theseus_--here, the _Vanguard_;" as he spoke each name sonorous,-- _Minotaur, Defence, Majestic_, stanch old comrades of the brine, That against the s.h.i.+ps of Brucys made their broadsides roar in chorus,-- Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line.

Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might a man left-handed, Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar.

While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded, Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutla.s.s-scar.

For he served aboard the _Vanguard_, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed.

Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding, Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered, flashed, and screamed.

Till a cry swelled loud and louder,--towered on fire the _Orient_ stately, Brucys' flag-s.h.i.+p, she that carried guns a hundred and a score; Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately, Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more.

"'Lower the boats!' was Nelson's order."-- But the listening boy beside him, Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye, Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him, Here, with childhood's crude consistence, broke the tale to question "Why?"

For by children facts go streaming in a throng that never pauses, Noted not, till, of a sudden, thought, a sunbeam, gilds the motes, All at once the known words quicken, and the child would deal with causes.

Since to kill the French was righteous, why bade Nelson lower the boats?

Quick the man put by the question. "But the _Orient_, none could save her; We could see the s.h.i.+ps, the ensigns, clear as daylight by the flare; And a many leaped and left her; but, G.o.d rest 'em! some were braver; Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to G.o.d knows where."

At the shock, he said, the _Vanguard_ shook through all her timbers oaken; It was like the shock of Doomsday,--not a tar but shuddered hard.

All was hushed for one strange moment; then that awful calm was broken By the heavy plash that answered the descent of mast and yard.

So, her cannon still defying, and her colors flaming, flying, In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead, Soared the _Orient_ into darkness with her living and her dying: "Yet our lads made s.h.i.+ft to rescue three-score souls," the seaman said.

Long the boy with knit brows wondered o'er that friending of the foeman; Long the man with shut lips pondered; powerless he to tell the cause Why the brother in his bosom that desired the death of no man, In the crash of battle wakened, snapped the bonds of hate like straws.

While he mused, his toddling maiden drew the daisies to a posy; Mild the bells of Sunday morning rang across the church-yard sod; And, helped on by tender hands, with st.u.r.dy feet all bare and rosy, Climbed his babe to mother's breast, as climbs the slow world up to G.o.d.

A RESURRECTION

_Neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead_.

I was quick in the flesh, was warm, and the live heart shook my breast; In the market I bought and sold, in the temple I bowed my head.

I had swathed me in shows and forms, and was honored above the rest For the sake of the life I lived; nor did any esteem me dead.

But at last, when the hour was ripe--was it sudden-remembered word?

Was it sight of a bird that mounted, or sound of a strain that stole?

I was 'ware of a spell that snapped, of an inward strength that stirred, Of a Presence that filled that place; and it shone, and I knew my Soul.

And the dream I had called my life was a garment about my feet, For the web of the years was rent with the throe of a yearning strong.

With a sweep as of winds in heaven, with a rush as of flames that meet, The Flesh and the Spirit clasped; and I cried, "Was I dead so long?"

I had glimpse of the Secret, flashed through the symbol obscure and mean, And I felt as a fire what erst I repeated with lips of clay; And I knew for the things eternal the things eye hath not seen; Yea, the heavens and the earth shall pa.s.s; but they never shall pa.s.s away.

And the miracle on me wrought, in the streets I would straight make known: "When this marvel of mine is heard, without cavil shall men receive Any legend of haloed saint, staring up through the sealed stone!"

So I spake in the trodden ways; but behold, there would none believe!

THE GLORIOUS COMPANY

"Faces, faces, faces of the streaming marching surge, Streaming on the weary road, toward the awful steep, Whence your glow and glory, as ye set to that sharp verge, Faces lit as sunlit stars, s.h.i.+ning as ye sweep?

"Whence this wondrous radiance that ye somehow catch and cast, Faces rapt, that one discerns 'mid the dusky press Herding in dull wonder, gathering fearful to the Vast?

Surely all is dark before, night of nothingness!"

_Lo, the Light!_ (they answer) _O the pure, the pulsing Light, Beating like a heart of life, like a heart of love, Soaring, searching, filling all the breadth and depth and height, Welling, whelming with its peace worlds below, above!_

"O my soul, how art thou to that living Splendor blind, Sick with thy desire to see even as these men see!-- Yet to look upon them is to know that G.o.d hath s.h.i.+ned: Faces lit as sunlit stars, be all my light to me!"

THE TRUMPETER

Two s.h.i.+ps, alone in sky and sea, Hang clinched, with crash and roar; There is but one--whiche'er it be-- Will ever come to sh.o.r.e.

And will it be the grim black bulk, That towers so evil now?

Or will it be The Grace of G.o.d, With the angel at her prow?

The man that breathes the battle's breath May live at last to know; But the trumpeter lies sick to death In the stifling dark below.

He hears the fight above him rave; He fears his mates must yield; He lies as in a narrow grave Beneath a battle-field.

His fate will fall before the s.h.i.+p's, Whate'er the s.h.i.+p betide; He lifts the trumpet to his lips As though he kissed a bride.

"Now blow thy best, blow thy last, My trumpet, for the Right!"-- He has sent his soul in one strong blast, To hearten them that fight.

COMRADES

"Oh, whither, whither, rider toward the west?"

"And whither, whither, rider toward the east?"