Poems: New and Old Part 5

Laden with spoil of the South, fulfilled with the glory of achievement, And freshly crowned with never-dying fame, Sweeping by sh.o.r.es where the names are the names of the victories of England, Across the Bay the squadron homeward came.

Proudly they came, but their pride was the pomp of a funeral at midnight, When dreader yet the lonely morrow looms; Few are the words that are spoken, and faces are gaunt beneath the torchlight That does but darken more the nodding plumes.

Low on the field of his fame, past hope lay the Admiral triumphant, And fain to rest him after all his pain; Yet for the love that he bore to his own land, ever unforgotten, He prayed to see the western hills again.

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Fainter than stars in a sky long gray with the coming of the daybreak, Or sounds of night that fade when night is done, So in the death-dawn faded the splendour and loud renown of warfare, And life of all its longings kept but one.

"Oh! to be there for an hour when the shade draws in beside the hedgerows, And falling apples wake the drowsy noon: Oh! for the hour when the elms grow sombre and human in the twilight, And gardens dream beneath the rising moon.

"Only to look once more on the land of the memories of childhood, Forgetting weary winds and barren foam: Only to bid farewell to the combe and the orchard and the moorland, And sleep at last among the fields of home!"

So he was silently praying, till now, when his strength was ebbing faster, The Lizard lay before them faintly blue; Now on the gleaming horizon the white cliffs laughed along the coast-line, And now the forelands took the shapes they knew.

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There lay the Sound and the Island with green leaves down beside the water, The town, the Hoe, the masts with sunset fired-- Dreams! ay, dreams of the dead! for the great heart faltered on the threshold, And darkness took the land his soul desired.

{45}.

'Vae Victis'

Beside the placid sea that mirrored her With the old glory of dawn that cannot die, The sleeping city began to moan and stir, As one that fain from an ill dream would fly; Yet more she feared the daylight bringing nigh Such dreams as know not sunrise, soon or late,-- Visions of honour lost and power gone by, Of loyal valour betrayed by factious hate, And craven sloth that shrank from the labour of forging fate.

They knew and knew not, this bewildered crowd That up her streets in silence hurrying pa.s.sed, What manner of death should make their anguish loud, What corpse across the funeral pyre be cast, For none had spoken it; only, gathering fast As darkness gathers at noon in the sun's eclipse, A shadow of doom enfolded them, vague and vast, And a cry was heard, unfathered of earthly lips, What of the ships, O Carthage! Carthage, what of the ships?"

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They reached the wall, and nowise strange it seemed To find the gates unguarded and open wide; They climbed the shoulder, and meet enough they deemed The black that shrouded the seaward rampart's side And veiled in drooping gloom the turrets' pride; But this was nought, for suddenly down the slope They saw the harbour, and sense within them died; Keel nor mast was there, rudder nor rope; It lay like a sea-hawk's eyry spoiled of life and hope.

Beyond, where dawn was a glittering carpet, rolled From sky to sh.o.r.e on level and endless seas, Hardly their eyes discerned in a dazzle of gold That here in fifties, yonder in twos and threes, The ships they sought, like a swarm of drowning bees By a wanton gust on the pool of a mill-dam hurled, Floated forsaken of life-giving tide and breeze, Their oars broken, their sails for ever furled, For ever deserted the bulwarks that guarded the wealth of the world.

A moment yet, with breathing quickly drawn And hands agrip, the Carthaginian folk Stared in the bright untroubled face of dawn, And strove with vehement heaped denial to choke Their sure surmise of fate's impending stroke;

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Vainly--for even now beneath their gaze A thousand delicate spires of distant smoke Reddened the disc of the sun with a stealthy haze, And the smouldering grief of a nation burst with the kindling blaze.

"O dying Carthage!" so their pa.s.sion raved, "Would nought but these the conqueror's hate a.s.suage?

If these be taken, how may the land be saved Whose meat and drink was empire, age by age?"

And bitter memory cursed with idle rage The greed that coveted gold above renown, The feeble hearts that feared their heritage, The hands that cast the sea-kings' sceptre down And left to alien brows their famed ancestral crown.

The endless noon, the endless evening through, All other needs forgetting, great or small, They drank despair with thirst whose torment grew As the hours died beneath that stifling pall.

At last they saw the fires to blackness fall One after one, and slowly turned them home, A little longer yet their own to call A city enslaved, and wear the bonds of Rome, With weary hearts foreboding all the woe to come.

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'Minora Sidera'

(THE DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY).

Sitting at times over a hearth that burns With dull domestic glow, My thought, leaving the book, gratefully turns To you who planned it so.

Not of the great only you deigned to tell-- The stars by which we steer-- But lights out of the night that flashed, and fell To-night again, are here.

Such as were those, dogs of an elder day, Who sacked the golden ports, And those later who dared grapple their prey Beneath the harbour forts:

Some with flag at the fore, sweeping the world To find an equal fight, And some who joined war to their trade, and hurled Ships of the line in flight.

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Whether their fame centuries long should ring They cared not over-much, But cared greatly to serve G.o.d and the king, And keep the Nelson touch;

And fought to build Britain above the tide Of wars and windy fate; And pa.s.sed content, leaving to us the pride Of lives obscurely great.

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'Laudabunt Alii'

(AFTER HORACE).

Let others praise, as fancy wills, Berlin beneath her trees, Or Rome upon her seven hills, Or Venice by her seas; Stamboul by double tides embraced, Or green Damascus in the waste.

For me there's nought I would not leave For the good Devon land, Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve Bedewed with spray-drift stand, And hardly bear the red fruit up That shall be next year's cider-cup.

You too, my friend, may wisely mark How clear skies follow rain, And lingering in your own green park Or drilled on Lafian's Plain, Forget not with the festal bowl To soothe at times your weary soul.

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When Drake must bid to Plymouth Hoe Good-bye for many a day, And some were sad that feared to go, And some that dared not stay, Be sure he bade them broach the best And raised his tankard with the rest.

"Drake's luck to all that sail with Drake For promised lands of gold!

Brave lads, whatever storms may break, We've weathered worse of old!

To-night the loving-cup we'll drain, To-morrow for the Spanish Main!"

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'Admiral Death'

Boys, are ye calling a toast to-night?

(Hear what the sea-wind saith) Fill for a b.u.mper strong and bright, And here's to Admiral Death!

He's sailed in a hundred builds o' boat, He's fought in a thousand kinds o' coat, He's the senior flag of all that float, And his name's Admiral Death!

Which of you looks for a service free?