John Marr and Other Poems Part 1

John Marr and Other Poems.

by Herman Melville.

Introductory Note

Melville's verse printed for the most part privately in small editions from middle life onward after his great prose work had been written, taken as a whole, is of an amateurish and uneven quality. In it, however, that loveable freshness of personality, which his philosophical dejection never quenched, is everywhere in evidence. It is clear that he did not set himself to master the poet's art, yet through the mask of conventional verse which often falls into doggerel, the voice of a true poet is heard. In selecting the pieces for this volume I have put in the vigorous sea verses of _John Marr_ in their entirety and added those others from his _Battle Pieces_, _Timoleon,_ etc., that best indicate the quality of their author's personality. The prose supplement to battle pieces has been included because it does so much to explain the feeling of his war verse and further because it is such a remarkably wise and clear commentary upon those confused and troublous days of post-war reconstruction. H. C.

JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS

Since as in night's deck-watch ye show, Why, lads, so silent here to me, Your watchmate of times long ago?

Once, for all the darkling sea, You your voices raised how clearly, Striking in when tempest sung; Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly, _Life is storm--let storm!_ you rung.

Taking things as fated merely, Childlike though the world ye spanned; Nor holding unto life too dearly, Ye who held your lives in hand-- Skimmers, who on oceans four Petrels were, and larks ash.o.r.e.

O, not from memory lightly flung, Forgot, like strains no more availing, The heart to music haughtier strung; Nay, frequent near me, never staleing, Whose good feeling kept ye young.

Like tides that enter creek or stream, Ye come, ye visit me, or seem Swimming out from seas of faces, Alien myriads memory traces, To enfold me in a dream!

I yearn as ye. But rafts that strain, Parted, shall they lock again?

Twined we were, entwined, then riven, Ever to new embracements driven, Shifting gulf-weed of the main!

And how if one here shift no more, Lodged by the flinging surge ash.o.r.e?

Nor less, as now, in eve's decline, Your shadowy fellowship is mine.

Ye float around me, form and feature:-- Tattooings, ear-rings, love-locks curled; Barbarians of man's simpler nature, Unworldly servers of the world.

Yea, present all, and dear to me, Though shades, or scouring China's sea.

Whither, whither, merchant-sailors, Whitherward now in roaring gales?

Competing still, ye huntsman-whalers, In leviathan's wake what boat prevails?

And man-of-war's men, whereaway?

If now no dinned drum beat to quarters On the wilds of midnight waters-- Foemen looming through the spray; Do yet your gangway lanterns, streaming, Vainly strive to pierce below, When, tilted from the slant plank gleaming, A brother you see to darkness go?

But, gunmates lashed in shotted canvas, If where long watch-below ye keep, Never the shrill _"All hands up hammocks!"_ Breaks the spell that charms your sleep, And summoning trumps might vainly call, And booming guns implore-- A beat, a heart-beat musters all, One heart-beat at heart-core.

It musters. But to clasp, retain; To see you at the halyards main-- To hear your chorus once again!

BRIDEGROOM d.i.c.k 1876

Sunning ourselves in October on a day Balmy as spring, though the year was in decay, I lading my pipe, she stirring her tea, My old woman she says to me, "Feel ye, old man, how the season mellows?"

And why should I not, blessed heart alive, Here mellowing myself, past sixty-five, To think o' the May-time o' pennoned young fellows This stripped old hulk here for years may survive.

Ere yet, long ago, we were spliced, Bonny Blue, (Silvery it gleams down the moon-glade o' time, Ah, sugar in the bowl and berries in the prime!) c.o.xswain I o' the Commodore's crew,-- Under me the fellows that manned his fine gig, Spinning him ash.o.r.e, a king in full fig.

Chirrupy even when crosses rubbed me, Bridegroom d.i.c.k lieutenants dubbed me.

Pleasant at a yarn, Bob o' Link.u.m in a song, Diligent in duty and nattily arrayed, Favored I was, wife, and _fleeted_ right along; And though but a tot for such a tall grade, A high quartermaster at last I was made.

All this, old la.s.sie, you have heard before, But you listen again for the sake e'en o' me; No babble stales o' the good times o' yore To Joan, if Darby the babbler be.

Babbler?--O' what? Addled brains, they forget!

O--quartermaster I; yes, the signals set, Hoisted the ensign, mended it when frayed, Polished up the binnacle, minded the helm, And prompt every order blithely obeyed.

To me would the officers say a word cheery-- Break through the starch o' the quarter-deck realm; His c.o.xswain late, so the Commodore's pet.

Ay, and in night-watches long and weary, Bored nigh to death with the navy etiquette, Yearning, too, for fun, some younker, a cadet, Dropping for time each vain b.u.mptious trick, Boy-like would unbend to Bridegroom d.i.c.k.

But a limit there was--a check, d' ye see: Those fine young aristocrats knew their degree.

Well, stationed aft where their lordships keep,-- Seldom _going_ forward excepting to sleep,-- I, boozing now on by-gone years, My betters recall along with my peers.

Recall them? Wife, but I see them plain: Alive, alert, every man stirs again.

Ay, and again on the lee-side pacing, My spy-gla.s.s carrying, a truncheon in show, Turning at the taffrail, my footsteps retracing, Proud in my duty, again methinks I go.

And Dave, Dainty Dave, I mark where he stands, Our trim sailing-master, to time the high-noon, That thingumbob s.e.xtant perplexing eyes and hands, Squinting at the sun, or twigging o' the moon; Then, touching his cap to Old Chock-a-Block Commanding the quarter-deck,--"Sir, twelve o'clock."

Where sails he now, that trim sailing-master, Slender, yes, as the ship's sky-s'l pole?

Dimly I mind me of some sad disaster-- Dainty Dave was dropped from the navy-roll!

And ah, for old Lieutenant Chock-a-Block-- Fast, wife, chock-fast to death's black dock!

Buffeted about the obstreperous ocean, Fleeted his life, if lagged his promotion.

Little girl, they are all, all gone, I think, Leaving Bridegroom d.i.c.k here with lids that wink.

Where is Ap Catesby? The fights fought of yore Famed him, and laced him with epaulets, and more.

But fame is a wake that after-wakes cross, And the waters wallow all, and laugh _Where's the loss?_ But John Bull's bullet in his shoulder bearing Ballasted Ap in his long sea-faring.

The middies they ducked to the man who had messed With Decatur in the gun-room, or forward pressed Fighting beside Perry, Hull, Porter, and the rest.

Humped veteran o' the Heart-o'-Oak war, Moored long in haven where the old heroes are, Never on _you_ did the iron-clads jar!

Your open deck when the boarder a.s.sailed, The frank old heroic hand-to-hand then availed.

But where's Guert Gan? Still heads he the van?

As before Vera-Cruz, when he dashed splashing through The blue rollers sunned, in his brave gold-and- blue, And, ere his cutter in keel took the strand, Aloft waved his sword on the hostile land!

Went up the cheering, the quick chanticleering; All hands vying--all colors flying: "c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!" and "Row, boys, row!"

"Hey, Starry Banner!" "Hi, Santa Anna!"

Old Scott's young dash at Mexico.

Fine forces o' the land, fine forces o' the sea, Fleet, army, and flotilla--tell, heart o' me, Tell, if you can, whereaway now they be!

But ah, how to speak of the hurricane unchained-- The Union's strands parted in the hawser over-strained; Our flag blown to shreds, anchors gone altogether-- The dashed fleet o' States in Secession's foul weather.

Lost in the smother o' that wide public stress, In hearts, private hearts, what ties there were snapped!

Tell, Hal--vouch, Will, o' the ward-room mess, On you how the riving thunder-bolt clapped.

With a bead in your eye and beads in your gla.s.s, And a grip o' the flipper, it was part and pa.s.s: "Hal, must it be: Well, if come indeed the shock, To North or to South, let the victory cleave, Vaunt it he may on his dung-hill the c.o.c.k, But _Uncle Sam's_ eagle never crow will, believe."

Sentiment: ay, while suspended hung all, Ere the guns against Sumter opened there the ball, And partners were taken, and the red dance began, War's red dance o' death!--Well, we, to a man, We sailors o' the North, wife, how could we lag?-- Strike with your kin, and you stick to the flag!

But to sailors o' the South that easy way was barred.

To some, dame, believe (and I speak o' what I know), Wormwood the trial and the Uzzite's black shard; And the faithfuller the heart, the crueller the throe.

Duty? It pulled with more than one string, This way and that, and anyhow a sting.

The flag and your kin, how be true unto both?

If either plight ye keep, then ye break the other troth.

But elect here they must, though the casuists were out; Decide--hurry up--and throttle every doubt.

Of all these thrills thrilled at keelson, and throes, Little felt the shoddyites a-toasting o' their toes; In mart and bazar Lucre chuckled the huzza, Coining the dollars in the b.l.o.o.d.y mint of war.

But in men, gray knights o' the Order o' Scars, And brave boys bound by vows unto Mars, Nature grappled honor, intertwisting in the strife:-- But some cut the knot with a thoroughgoing knife.

For how when the drums beat? How in the fray In Hampton Roads on the fine balmy day?