The Story Of A Round-House And Other Poems Part 1

THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE AND OTHER POEMS.

by John Masefield.

DAUBER

I

Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck, All work aboard was over for the hour, And some men sang and others played at check, Or mended clothes or watched the sunset glower.

The bursting west was like an opening flower, And one man watched it till the light was dim, But no one went across to talk to him.

He was the painter in that swift ship's crew, Lampman and painter--tall, a slight-built man, Young for his years, and not yet twenty-two; Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan.

Bullied and d.a.m.ned at since the voyage "Being neither man nor seaman by his tally,"

He bunked with the idlers just abaft the galley.

His work began at five; he worked all day, Keeping no watch and having all night in.

His work was what the mate might care to say; He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin; His dungarees were smeared with paraffin.

"Go drown himself" his round-house mates advised him, And all hands called him "Dauber" and despised him.

Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar, Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side, Slushing his hands to get away the tar, And then he washed himself and rinsed and dried; Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager eyed, He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there stood Watching the gold of heaven turn to blood.

They stood there by the rail while the swift ship Tore on out of the tropics, straining her sheets, Whitening her trackway to a milky strip, Dim with green bubbles and twisted water meets, Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and cleats, Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts leaned: They watched how the seas struck and burst and greened.

Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side.

"Why did you come to sea, painter?" he said.

"I want to be a painter," he replied, "And know the sea and ships from A to Z, And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead; Ships under skysails running down the Trade-- Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer made.

"But there's so much to learn, with sails and ropes, And how the sails look, full or being furled, And how the lights change in the troughs and slopes, And the sea's colours up and down the world, And how a storm looks when the sprays are hurled High as the yard (they say) I want to see; There's none ash.o.r.e can teach such things to me.

"And then the men and rigging, and the way Ships move, running or beating, and the poise At the roll's end, the checking in the sway-- I want to paint them perfect, short of the noise; And then the life, the half-decks full of boys, The fo'c'sles with the men there, dripping wet: I know the subjects that I want to get.

"It's not been done, the sea, not yet been done, From the inside, by one who really knows; I'd give up all if I could be the one, But art comes dear the way the money goes.

So I have come to sea, and I suppose Three years will teach me all I want to learn And make enough to keep me till I earn."

Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved, Drawing the leap of water off the side Where the great clipper trampled iron-hooved, Making the blue hills of the sea divide, Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride, And leaping on full tilt with all sails drawing, Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, pawing.

"I cannot get it yet--not yet," he said; "That leap and light, and sudden change to green, And all the glittering from the sunset's red, And the milky colours where the bursts have been, And then the clipper striding like a queen Over it all, all beauty to the crown.

I see it all, I cannot put it down.

"It's hard not to be able. There, look there!

I cannot get the movement nor the light; Sometimes it almost makes a man despair To try and try and never get it right.

Oh, if I could--oh, if I only might, I wouldn't mind what h.e.l.ls I'd have to pa.s.s, Not if the whole world called me fool and a.s.s."

Down sank the crimson sun into the sea, The wind cut chill at once, the west grew dun.

"Out sidelights!" called the mate. "Hi, where is he?"

The Boatswain called, "Out sidelights, d.a.m.n you! Run!"

"He's always late or lazing," murmured one-- "The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon the tints Of red and green pa.s.sed on dark water-glints.

Darker it grew, still darker, and the stars Burned golden, and the fiery fishes came.

The wire-note loudened from the straining spars; The sheet-blocks clacked together always the same; The rushing fishes streaked the seas with flame, Racing the one speed n.o.ble as their own: What unknown joy was in those fish unknown!

Just by the round-house door, as it grew dark, The Boatswain caught the Dauber with, "Now, you; Till now I've spared you, d.a.m.n you! now you hark: I've just had h.e.l.l for what you didn't do; I'll have you broke and sent among the crew If you get me more trouble by a particle.

Don't you forget, you daubing, useless article!

"You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port Mahon!"

Then came the Cook's "Is that the Dauber there?

Why don't you leave them stinking paints alone?

They stink the house out, poisoning all the air.

Just take them out." "Where to?" "I don't care where.

I won't have stinking paint here." From their plates: "That's right; wet paint breeds fever," growled his mates.

He took his still wet drawings from the berth And climbed the ladder to the deck-house top; Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth, For two ship's boys were putting on the strop: One, clambering up to let the skylight drop, Saw him bend down beneath a boat and lay His drawings there, till all were hid away,

And stand there silent, leaning on the boat, Watching the constellations rise and burn, Until the beauty took him by the throat, So stately is their glittering overturn; Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn With banners rising and falling, and pa.s.sing by Over the empty silence of the sky.

The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails, Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night, The high trucks traced on heaven and left no trails; The moonlight made the topsails almost white, The pa.s.sing sidelight seemed to drip green light.

And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright bows; He sighed, "I'll never do't," and left the house.

"Now," said the reefer, "up! Come, Sam; come, Si, Dauber's been hiding something." Up they slid, Treading on naked tiptoe stealthily To grope for treasure at the long-boat skid.

"Drawings!" said Sam. "Is this what Dauber hid?

Lord! I expected pudding, not this rot.

Still, come, we'll have some fun with what we've got."

They smeared the paint with turpentine until They could remove with mess-clouts every trace Of quick perception caught by patient skill, And lines that had brought blood into his face.

They wiped the pigments off, and did erase, With knives, all sticking clots. When they had done.

Under the boat they laid them every one.

All he had drawn since first he came to sea, His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them there.

They chuckled then to think how mad he'd be Finding his paintings vanished into air.

Eight bells were struck, and feet from everywhere Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark; The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red spark.

Names in the darkness pa.s.sed and voices cried; The red spark glowed and died, the faces seemed As things remembered when a brain has died, To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed.

Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed, And on the clipper rushed with tossing mast, A bath of flame broke round her as she pa.s.sed.

The watch was set, the night came, and the men Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep, Bunched like the dead; still, like the dead, as when Plague in a city leaves none even to weep.

The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep; The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars: South-west by south she staggered under the stars.

Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake Thinking of his unfitness for the sea.

Each failure, each derision, each mistake, There in the life not made for such as he; A morning grim with trouble sure to be, A noon of pain from failure, and a night Bitter with men's contemning and despite.

This in the first beginning, the green leaf, Still in the Trades before bad weather fell; What harvest would he reap of hate and grief When the loud Horn made every life a h.e.l.l?

When the sick ship lay over, clanging her bell, And no time came for painting or for drawing, But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing?

h.e.l.l, he expected,--h.e.l.l. His eyes grew blind; The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled, And then a gush of pity calmed his mind.

The cruel torment of his thought was m.u.f.fled, Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman shuffled, Humming his song, and through the open door A moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor.

The green bunk curtains moved, the bra.s.s rings clicked, The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning, The moonbeams' moving finger touched and picked, And all the stars in all the sky were burning.

"This is the art I've come for, and am learning, The sea and ships and men and travelling things.

It is most proud, whatever pain it brings."