John Marr and Other Poems Part 3

Ensigns and arms in trophy brave, Braver for many a rent and scar, The captor's naval hall bedeck, Spoil that insures an earldom's star-- Toledoes great, grand draperies, too, Spain's steel and silk, and splendors from Peru.

But crippled part in splintering fight, The vanquished flying the victor's flags, With prize-crews, under convoy-guns, Heavy the fleet from Opher drags-- The Admiral crowding sail ahead, Foremost with news who foremost in conflict sped.

But out from cloistral gallery dim, In early night his glance is thrown; He marks the vague reserve of heaven, He feels the touch of ocean lone; Then turns, in frame part undermined, Nor notes the shadowing wings that fan behind.

There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly, And follow, follow fast in wake Where slides the cabin-l.u.s.tre shy, And sharks from man a glamour take, Seething along the line of light In lane that endless rules the war-ship's flight.

The sea-fowl here, whose hearts none know, They followed late the flag-ship quelled, (As now the victor one) and long Above her gurgling grave, shrill held With screams their wheeling rites--then sped Direct in silence where the victor led.

Now winds less fleet, but fairer, blow, A ripple laps the coppered side, While phosphor sparks make ocean gleam, Like camps lit up in triumph wide; With lights and tinkling cymbals meet Acclaiming seas the advancing conqueror greet.

But who a flattering tide may trust, Or favoring breeze, or aught in end?-- Careening under startling blasts The sheeted towers of sails impend; While, gathering bale, behind is bred A livid storm-bow, like a rainbow dead.

At trumpet-call the topmen spring; And, urged by after-call in stress, Yet other tribes of tars ascend The rigging's howling wilderness; But ere yard-ends alert they win, h.e.l.l rules in heaven with hurricane-fire and din.

The spars, athwart at spiry height, Like quaking Lima's crosses rock; Like bees the cl.u.s.tering sailors cling Against the shrouds, or take the shock Flat on the swept yard-arms aslant, Dipped like the wheeling condor's pinions gaunt.

A LULL! and tongues of languid flame Lick every boom, and lambent show Electric 'gainst each face aloft; The herds of clouds with bellowings go: The black ship rears--beset--hara.s.sed, Then plunges far with luminous antlers vast.

In trim betimes they turn from land, Some shivered sails and spars they stow; One watch, dismissed, they troll the can, While loud the billow thumps the bow-- Vies with the fist that smites the board, Obstreperous at each reveller's jovial word.

Of royal oak by storms confirmed, The tested hull her lineage shows: Vainly the plungings whelm her prow-- She rallies, rears, she st.u.r.dier grows: Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home, With batteries housed she rams the watery dome.

DIM seen adrift through driving scud, The wan moon shows in plight forlorn; Then, pinched in visage, fades and fades Like to the faces drowned at morn, When deeps engulfed the flag-ship's crew, And, shrilling round, the inscrutable haglets flew.

And still they fly, nor now they cry, But constant fan a second wake, Unflagging pinions ply and ply, Abreast their course intent they take; Their silence marks a stable mood, They patient keep their eager neighborhood.

Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea, Heaved in a combing pyramid full, Spent at its climax, in collapse Down headlong thundering stuns the hull: The trophy drops; but, reared again, Shows Mars' high-altar and contemns the main.

REBUILT it stands, the brag of arms, Transferred in site--no thought of where The sensitive needle keeps its place, And starts, disturbed, a quiverer there; The helmsman rubs the clouded gla.s.s-- Peers in, but lets the trembling portent pa.s.s.

Let pa.s.s as well his shipmates do (Whose dream of power no tremors jar) Fears for the fleet convoyed astern: "Our flag they fly, they share our star; Spain's galleons great in hull are stout: Manned by our men--like us they'll ride it out."

Tonight's the night that ends the week-- Ends day and week and month and year: A fourfold imminent flickering time, For now the midnight draws anear: Eight bells! and pa.s.sing-bells they be-- The Old year fades, the Old Year dies at sea.

He launched them well. But shall the New Redeem the pledge the Old Year made, Or prove a self-a.s.serting heir?

But healthy hearts few qualms invade: By shot-chests grouped in bays 'tween guns The gossips chat, the grizzled, sea-beat ones.

And boyish dreams some graybeards blab: "To sea, my lads, we go no more Who share the Acapulco prize; We'll all night in, and bang the door; Our ingots red shall yield us bliss: Lads, golden years begin to-night with this!"

Released from deck, yet waiting call, Glazed caps and coats baptized in storm, A watch of Laced Sleeves round the board Draw near in heart to keep them warm: "Sweethearts and wives!" clink, clink, they meet, And, quaffing, dip in wine their beards of sleet.

"Ay, let the star-light stay withdrawn, So here her hearth-light memory fling, So in this wine-light cheer be born, And honor's fellowship weld our ring-- Honor! our Admiral's aim foretold:

_A tomb or a trophy,_ and lo, 't is a trophy and gold!"

But he, a unit, sole in rank, Apart needs keep his lonely state, The sentry at his guarded door Mute as by vault the sculptured Fate; Belted he sits in drowsy light, And, hatted, nods--the Admiral of the White.

He dozes, aged with watches pa.s.sed-- Years, years of pacing to and fro; He dozes, nor attends the stir In bullioned standards rustling low, Nor minds the blades whose secret thrill Perverts overhead the magnet's Polar will:--

LESS heeds the shadowing three that play And follow, follow fast in wake, Untiring wing and lidless eye-- Abreast their course intent they take; Or sigh or sing, they hold for good The unvarying flight and fixed inveterate mood.

In dream at last his dozings merge, In dream he reaps his victor's fruit; The Flags-o'-the-Blue, the Flags-o'-the-Red, Dipped flags of his country's fleets salute His Flag-o'-the-White in harbor proud-- But why should it blench? Why turn to a painted shroud?

The hungry seas they hound the hull, The sharks they dog the haglets' flight; With one consent the winds, the waves In hunt with fins and wings unite, While drear the harps in cordage sound Remindful wails for old Armadas drowned.

Ha--yonder! are they Northern Lights?

Or signals flashed to warn or ward?

Yea, signals lanced in breakers high; But doom on warning follows hard: While yet they veer in hope to shun, They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are one.

But beating hearts a drum-beat calls And prompt the men to quarters go; Discipline, curbing nature, rules-- Heroic makes who duty know: They execute the trump's command, Or in peremptory places wait and stand.

Yet cast about in blind amaze-- As through their watery shroud they peer: "We tacked from land: then how betrayed?

Have currents swerved us--snared us here?"

None heed the blades that clash in place Under lamps dashed down that lit the magnet's case.

Ah, what may live, who mighty swim, Or boat-crew reach that sh.o.r.e forbid, Or cable span? Must victors drown-- Perish, even as the vanquished did?

Man keeps from man the stifled moan; They shouldering stand, yet each in heart how lone.

Some heaven invoke; but rings of reefs Prayer and despair alike deride In dance of breakers forked or peaked, Pale maniacs of the maddened tide; While, strenuous yet some end to earn, The haglets spin, though now no more astern.

Like shuttles hurrying in the looms Aloft through rigging frayed they ply-- Cross and recross--weave and inweave, Then lock the web with clinching cry Over the seas on seas that clasp The weltering wreck where gurgling ends the gasp.

Ah, for the Plate-Fleet trophy now, The victor's voucher, flags and arms; Never they'll hang in Abbey old And take Time's dust with holier palms; Nor less content, in liquid night, Their captor sleeps--the Admiral of the White.

Imbedded deep with sh.e.l.ls And drifted treasure deep, Forever he sinks deeper in Unfathomable sleep-- His cannon round him thrown, His sailors at his feet, The wizard sea enchanting them Where never haglets beat.

On nights when meteors play And light the breakers dance, The Oreads from the caves With silvery elves advance; And up from ocean stream, And down from heaven far, The rays that blend in dream The abysm and the star.

THE AEOLIAN HARP _At The Surf Inn_

List the harp in window wailing Stirred by fitful gales from sea: Shrieking up in mad crescendo-- Dying down in plaintive key!

Listen: less a strain ideal Than Ariel's rendering of the Real.

What that Real is, let hint A picture stamped in memory's mint.

Braced well up, with beams aslant, Betwixt the continents sails the _Phocion,_ For Baltimore bound from Alicant.

Blue breezy skies white fleeces fleck Over the chill blue white-capped ocean: From yard-arm comes--"Wreck ho, a wreck!"

Dismasted and adrift, Longtime a thing forsaken; Overwashed by every wave Like the slumbering kraken; Heedless if the billow roar, Oblivious of the lull, Leagues and leagues from shoal or sh.o.r.e, It swims--a levelled hull: Bulwarks gone--a shaven wreck, Nameless and a gra.s.s-green deck.

A lumberman: perchance, in hold Prostrate pines with hemlocks rolled.

It has drifted, waterlogged, Till by trailing weeds beclogged: Drifted, drifted, day by day, Pilotless on pathless way.

It has drifted till each plank Is oozy as the oyster-bank: Drifted, drifted, night by night, Craft that never shows a light; Nor ever, to prevent worse knell, Tolls in fog the warning bell.

From collision never shrinking, Drive what may through darksome smother; Saturate, but never sinking, Fatal only to the _other!_ Deadlier than the sunken reef Since still the snare it shifteth, Torpid in dumb ambuscade Waylayingly it drifteth.