The Land of Song Volume Iii Part 16

Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away.

O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay?

RICHARD GARNETT.

ON THE SEA.

It keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate sh.o.r.es, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.

Often 'tis in such gentle temper found, That scarcely will the very smallest sh.e.l.l Be moved for days from where it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound.

O ye! who have your eyeb.a.l.l.s vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the sea; O ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody,-- Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!

JOHN KEATS.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE WHITE SHIP.

HENRY I. OF ENGLAND.--25th NOVEMBER, 1120.

By none but me can the tale be told, The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.

(_Lands are swayed by a King on a throne._)

'Twas a royal train put forth to sea, Yet the tale can be told by none but me.

(_The sea hath no King but G.o.d alone._)

King Henry held it as life's whole gain That after his death his son should reign.

'Twas so in my youth I heard men say, And my old age calls it back to-day.

King Henry of England's realm was he, And Henry Duke of Normandy.

The times had changed when on either coast "Clerkly Harry" was all his boast.

Of ruthless strokes full many a one He had struck to crown himself and his son; And his elder brother's eyes were gone.

And when to the chase his court would crowd, The poor flung plowshares on his road, And shrieked: "Our cry is from King to G.o.d!"

But all the chiefs of the English land Had knelt and kissed the Prince's hand.

And next with his son he sailed to France To claim the Norman allegiance:

And every baron in Normandy Had taken the oath of fealty.

'Twas sworn and sealed, and the day had come When the King and the Prince might journey home:

For Christmas cheer is to home hearts dear, And Christmas now was drawing near.

Stout Fitz-Stephen came to the King,-- A pilot famous in seafaring;

And he held to the King, in all men's sight, A mark of gold for his tribute's right.

"Liege Lord! my father guided the ship From whose boat your father's foot did slip When he caught the English soil in his grip,

"And cried: 'By this clasp I claim command O'er every rood of English land!'

"He was borne to the realm you rule o'er now In that ship with the archer carved at her prow:

"And thither I'll bear, an' it be my due, Your father's son and his grandson too.

"The famed White Ship is mine in the bay; From Harfleur's harbor she sails to-day,

"With masts fair-pennoned as Norman spears And with fifty well-tried mariners."

Quoth the King: "My ships are chosen each one, But I'll not say nay to Stephen's son.

"My son and daughter and fellowship Shall cross the water in the White Ship."

The King set sail with the eve's south wind, And soon he left that coast behind.

The Prince and all his, a princely show, Remained in the good White Ship to go.

With n.o.ble knights and with ladies fair, With courtiers and sailors gathered there, Three hundred living souls we were:

And I Berold was the meanest hind In all that train to the Prince a.s.signed.

The Prince was a lawless, shameless youth; From his father's loins he sprang without ruth:

Eighteen years till then he had seen, And the devil's dues in him were eighteen.

And now he cried: "Bring wine from below; Let the sailors revel ere yet they row:

"Our speed shall o'ertake my father's flight Though we sail from the harbor at midnight."

The rowers made good cheer without check; The lords and ladies obeyed his beck; The night was light, and they danced on the deck.

But at midnight's stroke they cleared the bay, And the White Ship furrowed the water way.

The sails were set, and the oars kept tune To the double flight of the ship and the moon:

Swifter and swifter the White Ship sped Till she flew as the spirit flies from the dead:

As white as a lily glimmered she Like a ship's fair ghost upon the sea.