Select Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 17

Fast Hamish back from the brink!" -- and ever she flies up the steep, And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle and strain.

But, mother, 'tis vain; but, father, 'tis vain; Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the child o'er the deep.

Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand still.

And the wife prays Hamish as if he were G.o.d, on her knees, Crying: "Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please [71]

For to spare him!" and Hamish still dangles the child, with a wavering will.

On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream, and a gibe, and a song, Cries: "So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all, Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall, And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of the thong!"

Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his tooth was red, Breathed short for a s.p.a.ce, said: "Nay, but it never shall be!

Let me hurl off the d.a.m.nable hound in the sea!"

But the wife: "Can Hamish go fish us the child from the sea, if dead?

"Say yea! -- Let them lash ME, Hamish?" -- "Nay!" -- "Husband, the lashing will heal; [81]

But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his grave?

Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave?

Quick! Love! I will bare thee -- so -- kneel!" Then Maclean 'gan slowly to kneel

With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the earth.

Then the henchman -- he that smote Hamish -- would tremble and lag; "Strike, hard!" quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag; Then he struck him, and "One!" sang Hamish, and danced with the child in his mirth.

And no man spake beside Hamish; he counted each stroke with a song.

When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace down the height, And he held forth the child in the heartaching sight [91]

Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting a wrong.

And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the thanksgiving prayer -- And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace, Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face -- In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in the air,

And sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible height in the sea, Shrill screeching, "Revenge!" in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean, Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots of a tree --

And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped in the brine, [101]

And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew, And the mother stared white on the waste of blue, And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began to shine.

____ Baltimore, 1878.

Notes: The Revenge of Hamish

For an appreciation of this fine poem see 'Introduction', pp. xlv, xlvii [Part IV], Mr. J. R. Tait, a friend with whom Mr. Lanier discussed 'The Revenge of Hamish', kindly writes me that the author took the plot from William Black's novel, 'Macleod of Dare'.

In chapter iii. Macleod, of Castle Dare, Mull, tells the story to his London entertainer; but, as the story of the novel is identical with that of the poem, it need not be given here.

The novel, I should add, gives the name of the chieftain only, though, as it has a Hamish in another connection, it doubtless gave Lanier this name for the henchman. Previous to the reception of Mr. Tait's letter I supposed that Lanier had borrowed his plot from a poem by Charles Mackay, 'Maclaine's Child, A Legend of Lochbuy, Mull', which in plot is identical with Lanier's poem, except that the former begins with the speech of the flogged henchman, here named Evan, and ends by telling us that the bodies were found and that of Evan was hanged on a gallows-tree. The poem is too long for quotation, but may be found in any edition of Mackay or in Garrett's 'One Hundred Choice Selections: Number Nine' (Phila., 1887).

17. The Macleans, for centuries one of the most powerful of Scottish clans, have since the fourteenth century lived in Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides Islands. The two leading branches of the clan were the Macleans of Dowart and the Macleans of Lochbuy, both taking their names from the seats of their castles. The Lochbuy family now spells its name MacLAINE. For a detailed history of the clan see Keltie's 'History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans', etc.

(London, 1885). Interesting books about Mull and the Hebrides are: Johnson's 'A Journey to the Hebrides' and Robert Buchanan's 'The Hebrid Isles'

(London, 1883). Instructive, too, is c.u.mmin's 'Around Mull'

('The Atlantic Monthly', 16. 11-19, 167-176, July, August, 1865).

The Marshes of Glynn

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven [1]

With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, -- Emerald twilights, -- Virginal shy lights, Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows, When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, Of the heavenly woods and glades, That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; -- [11]

Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, -- Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire, Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, -- Cells for the pa.s.sionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves, Pure with a sense of the pa.s.sing of saints through the wood, Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; --

O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shine Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine; But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, [21]

And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, -- Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak, And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know, And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compa.s.s within, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore [31]

When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, --

Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face The vast sweet visage of s.p.a.ce.

To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, For a mete and a mark To the forest-dark: -- So: [41]

Affable live-oak, leaning low, -- Thus -- with your favor -- soft, with a reverent hand, (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand, Free By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.

Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land.

Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl [51]

As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl.

Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.

And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high?

The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!

A league and a league of marsh-gra.s.s, waist-high, broad in the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main.

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? [61]

Somehow my soul seems suddenly free From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won G.o.d out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, [71]

Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of G.o.d: I will fly in the greatness of G.o.d as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the s.p.a.ce 'twixt the marsh and the skies: By so many roots as the marsh-gra.s.s sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of G.o.d: Oh, like to the greatness of G.o.d is the greatness within The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be: Look how the grace of the sea doth go [81]

About and about through the intricate channels that flow Here and there, Everywhere, Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose-and-silver evening glow.

Farewell, my lord Sun!

The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-gra.s.s stir; [91]

Pa.s.seth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Pa.s.seth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one.

How still the plains of the waters be!

The tide is in his ecstasy.

The tide is at his highest height: And it is night.

And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep Roll in on the souls of men, But who will reveal to our waking ken [101]

The forms that swim and the shapes that creep Under the waters of sleep?

And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide comes in On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of Glynn.