The Story Of A Round-House And Other Poems Part 5

"You cannot understand that. Let it be.

You cannot understand, nor know, nor share.

This is a matter touching only me; My sketch may be a daub, for aught I care.

You may be right. But even if you were, Your mocking should not stop this work of mine; Rot though it be, its prompting is divine.

"You cannot understand that--you, and you, And you, you Bosun. You can stand and jeer, That is the task your spirit fits you to, That you can understand and hold most dear.

Grin, then, like collars, ear to donkey ear, But let me daub. Try, you, to understand Which task will bear the light best on G.o.d's hand."

V

The wester came as steady as the Trades; Brightly it blew, and still the ship did shoulder The brilliance of the water's white c.o.c.kades Into the milky green of smoky smoulder.

The sky grew bluer and the air grew colder.

Southward she thundered while the westers held, Proud, with taut bridles, pawing, but compelled.

And still the Dauber strove, though all men mocked, To draw the splendour of the pa.s.sing thing, And deep inside his heart a something locked, Long p.r.i.c.king in him, now began to sting-- A fear of the disasters storm might bring; His rank as painter would be ended then-- He would keep watch and watch like other men.

And go aloft with them to man the yard When the great ship was rolling scuppers under, Burying her snout all round the compa.s.s card, While the green water struck at her and stunned her; When the lee-rigging slacked, when one long thunder Boomed from the black to windward, when the sail Booted and spurred the devil in the gale

For him to ride on men: that was the time The Dauber dreaded; then the test would come, When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks with slime, And all the air was blind with flying sc.u.m; When the drenched sails were furled, when the fierce hum In weather riggings died into the roar Of G.o.d's eternal never tamed by sh.o.r.e.

Once in the pa.s.sage he had worked aloft, Shifting her suits one summer afternoon, In the bright Trade wind, when the wind was soft, Shaking the points, making the tackle croon.

But that was child's play to the future: soon He would be ordered up when sails and spars Were flying and going mad among the stars.

He had been scared that first time, daunted, thrilled, Not by the height so much as by the size, And then the danger to the man unskilled In standing on a rope that runs through eyes.

"But in a storm," he thought, "the yards will rise And roll together down, and snap their gear!"

The sweat came cold upon his palms for fear.

Sometimes in Gloucester he had felt a pang Swinging below the house-eaves on a stage.

But stages carry rails; here he would hang Upon a jerking rope in a storm's rage, Ducked that the sheltering oilskin might a.s.suage The beating of the storm, clutching the jack, Beating the sail, and being beaten back.

Drenched, frozen, gasping, blinded, beaten dumb, High in the night, reeling great blinding arcs As the ship rolled, his chappy fingers numb, The deck below a narrow blur of marks, The sea a welter of whiteness shot with sparks, Now snapping up in bursts, now dying away, Salting the horizontal snow with spray.

A hundred and fifty feet above the deck, And there, while the ship rolls, boldly to sit Upon a foot-rope moving, jerk and check, While half a dozen seamen work on it; Held by one hand, straining, by strength and wit To toss a gasket's coil around the yard, How could he compa.s.s that when blowing hard?

And if he failed in any least degree, Or faltered for an instant, or showed slack, He might go drown himself within the sea, And add a bubble to the clipper's track.

He had signed his name, there was no turning back, No pardon for default--this must be done.

One iron rule at sea binds everyone.

Till now he had been treated with contempt As neither man nor thing, a creature borne On the ship's articles, but left exempt From all the seamen's life except their scorn.

But he would rank as seaman off the Horn, Work as a seaman, and be kept or cast By standards set for men before the mast.

Even now they shifted suits of sails; they bent The storm-suit ready for the expected time; The mighty wester that the Plate had lent Had brought them far into the wintry clime.

At dawn, out of the shadow, there was rime, The dim Magellan Clouds were frosty clear, The wind had edge, the testing-time was near.

And then he wondered if the tales were lies Told by old hands to terrify the new, For, since the ship left England, only twice Had there been need to start a sheet or clew, Then only royals, for an hour or two, And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold.

What were these gales of which the stories told?

The thought went by. He had heard the Bosun tell Too often, and too fiercely, not to know That being off the Horn in June is h.e.l.l: h.e.l.l of continual toil in ice and snow, Frostbitten h.e.l.l in which the westers blow Shrieking for days on end, in which the seas Gulf the starved seamen till their marrows freeze.

Such was the weather he might look to find, Such was the work expected: there remained Firmly to set his teeth, resolve his mind, And be the first, however much it pained, And bring his honour round the Horn unstained, And win his mates' respect; and thence, untainted, Be ranked as man however much he painted.

He drew deep breath; a gantline swayed aloft A lower topsail, hard with rope and leather, Such as men's frozen fingers fight with oft Below the Ramirez in Cape Horn weather.

The arms upon the yard hove all together, Lighting the head along; a thought occurred Within the painter's brain like a bright bird:

That this, and so much like it, of man's toil, Compa.s.sed by naked manhood in strange places, Was all heroic, but outside the coil Within which modern art gleams or grimaces; That if he drew that line of sailor's faces Sweating the sail, their pa.s.sionate play and change, It would be new, and wonderful, and strange.

That that was what his work meant; it would be A training in new vision--a revealing Of pa.s.sionate men in battle with the sea, High on an unseen stage, shaking and reeling; And men through him would understand their feeling, Their might, their misery, their tragic power, And all by suffering pain a little hour;

High on the yard with them, feeling their pain, Battling with them; and it had not been done.

He was a door to new worlds in the brain, A window opening letting in the sun, A voice saying, "Thus is bread fetched and ports won, And life lived out at sea where men exist Solely by man's strong brain and st.u.r.dy wrist."

So he decided, as he cleaned his bra.s.ses, Hearing without, aloft, the curse, the shout Where the taut gantline pa.s.ses and repa.s.ses, Heaving new topsails to be lighted out.

It was most proud, however self might doubt, To share man's tragic toil and paint it true.

He took the offered Fate: this he would do.

That night the snow fell between six and seven, A little feathery fall so light, so dry-- An aimless dust out of a confused heaven, Upon an air no steadier than a sigh; The powder dusted down and wandered by So purposeless, so many, and so cold, Then died, and the wind ceased and the ship rolled.

Rolled till she clanged--rolled till the brain was tired, Marking the acme of the heaves, the pause While the sea-beauty rested and respired, Drinking great draughts of roller at her hawse.

Flutters of snow came aimless upon flaws.

"Lock up your paints," the Mate said, speaking light: "This is the Horn; you'll join my watch to-night!"

VI

All through the windless night the clipper rolled In a great swell with oily gradual heaves Which rolled her down until her time-bells tolled, Clang, and the weltering water moaned like beeves.

The thundering rattle of slatting shook the sheaves, Startles of water made the swing ports gush, The sea was moaning and sighing and saying "Hush!"

It was all black and starless. Peering down Into the water, trying to pierce the gloom, One saw a dim, smooth, oily glitter of brown Heaving and dying away and leaving room For yet another. Like the march of doom Came those great powers of marching silences; Then fog came down, dead-cold, and hid the seas.

They set the Dauber to the foghorn. There He stood upon the p.o.o.p, making to sound Out of the pump the sailor's nasal blare, Listening lest ice should make the note resound.

She bayed there like a solitary hound Lost in a covert; all the watch she bayed.

The fog, come closelier down, no answer made.

Denser it grew, until the ship was lost.

The elemental hid her; she was merged In m.u.f.flings of dark death, like a man's ghost, New to the change of death, yet thither urged.

Then from the hidden waters something surged-- Mournful, despairing, great, greater than speech, A noise like one slow wave on a still beach.

Mournful, and then again mournful, and still Out of the night that mighty voice arose; The Dauber at his foghorn felt the thrill.

Who rode that desolate sea? What forms were those?

Mournful, from things defeated, in the throes Of memory of some conquered hunting-ground, Out of the night of death arose the sound.

"Whales!" said the Mate. They stayed there all night long Answering the horn. Out of the night they spoke, Defeated creatures who had suffered wrong, But were still n.o.ble underneath the stroke.

They filled the darkness when the Dauber woke; The men came peering to the rail to hear, And the sea sighed, and the fog rose up sheer.

A wall of nothing at the world's last edge, Where no life came except defeated life.

The Dauber felt shut in within a hedge, Behind which form was hidden and thought was rife, And that a blinding flash, a thrust, a knife Would sweep the hedge away and make all plain, Brilliant beyond all words, blinding the brain.