Verses 1889-1896 Part 30

You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake?

Well, tinker up your engines -- you know your business best -- _She_'s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!

AN AMERICAN

The American Spirit speaks:

"If the Led Striker call it a strike, Or the papers call it a war, They know not much what I am like, Nor what he is, my Avatar."

Through many roads, by me possessed, He shambles forth in cosmic guise; He is the Jester and the Jest, And he the Text himself applies.

The Celt is in his heart and hand, The Gaul is in his brain and nerve; Where, cosmopolitanly planned, He guards the Redskin's dry reserve.

His easy unswept hearth he lends From Labrador to Guadeloupe; Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.

Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown, Or panic-blinded stabs and slays: Blatant he bids the world bow down, Or cringing begs a crust of praise;

Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.

His hands are black with blood -- his heart Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.

But, through the s.h.i.+ft of mood and mood, Mine ancient humour saves him whole -- The cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul;

That bids him flout the Law he makes, That bids him make the Law he flouts, Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes The drumming guns that -- have no doubts;

That checks him foolish -- hot and fond, That chuckles through his deepest ire, That gilds the slough of his despond But dims the goal of his desire;

Inopportune, shrill-accented, The acrid Asiatic mirth That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead, The scandal of the elder earth.

How shall he clear himself, how reach Your bar or weighed defence prefer?

A brother hedged with alien speech And lacking all interpreter.

Which knowledge vexes him a s.p.a.ce; But while Reproof around him rings, He turns a keen untroubled face Home, to the instant need of things.

Enslaved, illogical, elate, He greets th' embarra.s.sed G.o.ds, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate Or match with Destiny for beers.

Lo, imperturbable he rules, Unkempt, disreputable, vast -- And, in the teeth of all the schools, I -- I shall save him at the last!

THE "MARY GLOSTER"

I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim -- d.i.c.k, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!

Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied.

I shall go under by morning, and -- Put that nurse outside.

'Never seen death yet, d.i.c.kie? Well, now is your time to learn, And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn.

Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too, I've made myself and a million; but I'm d.a.m.ned if I made you.

Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three -- Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea!

Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it fight, And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite: For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness -- what was it the papers a-had?

"Not least of our merchant-princes." d.i.c.kie, that's me, your dad!

_I_ didn't begin with askings. _I_ took my job and I stuck; And I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck.

Lord, what boats I've handled -- rotten and leaky and old!

Ran 'em, or -- opened the bilge-c.o.c.k, precisely as I was told.

Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud turn you grey, And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way.

The others they dursn't do it; they said they valued their life (They've served me since as skippers). _I_ went, and I took my wife.

Over the world I drove 'em, married at twenty-three, And your mother saving the money and making a man of me.

_I_ was content to be master, but she said there was better behind; She took the chances I wouldn't, and I followed your mother blind.

She egged me to borrow the money, an' she helped me to clear the loan, When we bought half shares in a cheap 'un and hoisted a flag of our own.

Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how, We started the Red Ox freighters -- we've eight-and-thirty now.

And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were clipper-freights, And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died in Maca.s.sar Straits -- By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank -- And we dropped her in fourteen fathom; I p.r.i.c.ked it off where she sank.

Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was christened for her, And she died in the _Mary Gloster_. My heart, how young we were!

So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran her ash.o.r.e, But your mother came and warned me and I wouldn't liquor no more: Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I'd think, Saving the money (she warned me), and letting the other men drink.

And I met M'Cullough in London (I'd turned five 'undred then), And 'tween us we started the Foundry -- three forges and twenty men: Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. It paid, and the business grew, For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that was a gold mine too.

"Cheaper to build 'em than buy 'em," _I_ said, but M'Cullough he s.h.i.+ed, And we wasted a year in talking before we moved to the Clyde.

And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of us started fair, Building our engines like houses and staying the boilers square.

But M'Cullough 'e wanted cabins with marble and maple and all, And Brussels an' Utrecht velvet, and baths and a Social Hall, And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the frames too light, But M'Cullough he died in the Sixties, and -- Well, I'm dying to-night. . . .

I knew -- _I_ knew what was coming, when we bid on the _Byfleet_'s keel -- They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel!

Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid, When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade!

And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text, "You keep your light so s.h.i.+ning a little in front o' the next!"

They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind, And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.

Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side; He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died.

I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print; And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a hint.

(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what the drawings meant, And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me sixty per cent -- Sixty per cent _with_ failures, and more than twice we could do, And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all for you!

I thought -- it doesn't matter -- you seemed to favour your ma, But you're nearer forty than thirty, and I know the kind you are.

Harrer an' Trinity College! I ought to ha' sent you to sea -- But I stood you an education, an' what have you done for me?

The things I knew was proper you wouldn't thank me to give, And the things I knew was rotten you said was the way to live.

For you muddled with books and pictures, an' china an' etchin's an' fans, And your rooms at college was beastly -- more like a wh.o.r.e's than a man's -- Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone, An' she gave you your social nonsense; but where's that kid o' your own?

I've seen your carriages blocking the half o' the Cromwell Road, But never the doctor's brougham to help the missus unload.

(So there isn't even a grandchild, an' the Gloster family's done.) Not like your mother, she isn't. _She_ carried her freight each run.

But they died, the pore little beggars! At sea she had 'em -- they died.

Only you, an' you stood it; you haven't stood much beside.

Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier's whelp Nosing for sc.r.a.ps in the galley. No help -- my son was no help!

So he gets three 'undred thousand, in trust and the interest paid.

I wouldn't give it you, d.i.c.kie -- you see, I made it in trade.

You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no child, It all comes back to the business. Gad, won't your wife be wild!

'Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up to 'er eye: "Daddy! dear daddy's dyin'!" and doing her best to cry.

Grateful? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep her away from here.

Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, women are queer. . . .

There's women will say I've married a second time.

Not quite! But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers'll fight.

She was the best o' the boiling -- you'll meet her before it ends; I'm in for a row with the mother -- I'll leave you settle my friends: For a man he must go with a woman, which women don't understand -- Or the sort that say they can see it they aren't the marrying brand.

But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still -- I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurting the will.

Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you, If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do.

They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can; And I've only you to trust to! (O G.o.d, why ain't he a man?) There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough tried -- Marbles and mausoleums -- but I call that sinful pride.