Chapter 2

_Better than the Cumberland!_—Heart alive in me! That battlemented hull, Tantallon o’ the sea, Kicked in, as at Boston the taxed chests o’ tea! Ay, spurned by the _ram,_ once a tall, shapely craft, But lopped by the Rebs to an iron-beaked raft— A blacksmith’s unicorn in armor _cap-a-pie_.

Under the water-line a _ram’s_ blow is dealt: And foul fall the knuckles that strike below the belt. Nor brave the inventions that serve to replace The openness of valor while dismantling the grace.

Aloof from all this and the never-ending game, Tantamount to teetering, plot and counterplot; Impenetrable armor—all-perforating shot; Aloof, bless God, ride the war-ships of old, A grand fleet moored in the roadstead of fame; Not submarine sneaks with _them_ are enrolled; Their long shadows dwarf us, their flags are as flame.

Don’t fidget so, wife; an old man’s passion Amounts to no more than this smoke that I puff; There, there, now, buss me in good old fashion; A died-down candle will flicker in the snuff.

But one last thing let your old babbler say, What Decatur’s coxswain said who was long ago hearsed, “Take in your flying-kites, for there comes a lubber’s day When gallant things will go, and the three-deckers first.”

My pipe is smoked out, and the grog runs slack; But bowse away, wife, at your blessed Bohea; This empty can here must needs solace me— Nay, sweetheart, nay; I take that back; Dick drinks from your eyes and he finds no lack!

TOM DEADLIGHT

During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British _Dreadnaught, 98,_ wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by snatches his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates, his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou’wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration, wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he voluntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings of distempered thought.

Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties,— Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain, For I’ve received orders for to sail for the Deadman, But hope with the grand fleet to see you again.

I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys; I have hove my ship to, for the strike soundings clear— The black scud a’flying; but, by God’s blessing, dam’ me, Right up the Channel for the Deadman I’ll steer.

I have worried through the waters that are called the Doldrums, And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye grope— Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads:— _Flying Dutchman_—odds bobbs—off the Cape of Good Hope!

But what’s this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt? The white goney’s wing?—how she rolls!— ’t is the Cape!— Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none; And tell _Holy Joe_ to avast with the crape.

Dead reckoning, says _Joe_, it won’t do to go by; But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t’ other night. Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman; And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right.

The signal!—it streams for the grand fleet to anchor. The captains—the trumpets—the hullabaloo! Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters, For the Lord High Admiral, he’s squinting at you!

But give me my _tot_, Matt, before I roll over; Jock, let’s have your flipper, it’s good for to feel; And don’t sew me up without _baccy_ in mouth, boys, And don’t blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel.

JACK ROY

Kept up by relays of generations young Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung; While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry, Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie. Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that run, And speeds in life’s career many a lavish mother’s-son.

But thou, manly king o’ the old _Splendid’s_ crew, The ribbons o’ thy hat still a-fluttering, should fly— A challenge, and forever, nor the bravery should rue. Only in a tussle for the starry flag high, When ’tis piety to do, and privilege to die. Then, only then, would heaven think to lop Such a cedar as the captain o’ the _Splendid’s_ main-top: A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-hand Mercutio indifferent in life’s gay command. Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering shot fell, “Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank ’em with a shell!”

Sang Larry o’ the _Cannakin,_ smuggler o’ the wine, At mess between guns, lad in jovial recline: “In Limbo our Jack he would chirrup up a cheer, The martinet there find a chaffing mutineer; From a thousand fathoms down under hatches o’ your Hades, He’d ascend in love-ditty, kissing fingers to your ladies!”

Never relishing the knave, though allowing for the menial, Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally genial. Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade, Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade, Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow a-sweeping— Arch iridescent shot from seas languid sleeping.

Larking with thy life, if a joy but a toy, Heroic in thy levity wert thou, Jack Roy.

SEA PIECES

THE HAGLETS

By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat The lichened urns in wilds are lost About a carved memorial stone That shows, decayed and coral-mossed, A form recumbent, swords at feet, Trophies at head, and kelp for a winding-sheet.

I invoke thy ghost, neglected fane, Washed by the waters’ long lament; I adjure the recumbent effigy To tell the cenotaph’s intent— Reveal why fagotted swords are at feet, Why trophies appear and weeds are the winding-sheet.

By open ports the Admiral sits, And shares repose with guns that tell Of power that smote the arm’d Plate Fleet Whose sinking flag-ship’s colors fell; But over the Admiral floats in light His squadron’s flag, the red-cross Flag of the White.

The eddying waters whirl astern, The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray; With bellying sails and buckling spars The black hull leaves a Milky Way; Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll, She revelling speeds exulting with pennon at pole,

But ah, for standards captive trailed For all their scutcheoned castles’ pride— Castilian towers that dominate Spain, Naples, and either Ind beside; Those haughty towers, armorial ones, Rue the salute from the Admiral’s dens of guns.

Ensigns and arms in trophy brave, Braver for many a rent and scar, The captor’s naval hall bedeck, Spoil that insures an earldom’s star— Toledoes great, grand draperies, too, Spain’s steel and silk, and splendors from Peru.

But crippled part in splintering fight, The vanquished flying the victor’s flags, With prize-crews, under convoy-guns, Heavy the fleet from Opher drags— The Admiral crowding sail ahead, Foremost with news who foremost in conflict sped.

But out from cloistral gallery dim, In early night his glance is thrown; He marks the vague reserve of heaven, He feels the touch of ocean lone; Then turns, in frame part undermined, Nor notes the shadowing wings that fan behind.

There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly, And follow, follow fast in wake Where slides the cabin-lustre shy, And sharks from man a glamour take, Seething along the line of light In lane that endless rules the war-ship’s flight.

The sea-fowl here, whose hearts none know, They followed late the flag-ship quelled, (As now the victor one) and long Above her gurgling grave, shrill held With screams their wheeling rites—then sped Direct in silence where the victor led.

Now winds less fleet, but fairer, blow, A ripple laps the coppered side, While phosphor sparks make ocean gleam, Like camps lit up in triumph wide; With lights and tinkling cymbals meet Acclaiming seas the advancing conqueror greet.

But who a flattering tide may trust, Or favoring breeze, or aught in end?— Careening under startling blasts The sheeted towers of sails impend; While, gathering bale, behind is bred A livid storm-bow, like a rainbow dead.

At trumpet-call the topmen spring; And, urged by after-call in stress, Yet other tribes of tars ascend The rigging’s howling wilderness; But ere yard-ends alert they win, Hell rules in heaven with hurricane-fire and din.

The spars, athwart at spiry height, Like quaking Lima’s crosses rock; Like bees the clustering sailors cling Against the shrouds, or take the shock Flat on the swept yard-arms aslant, Dipped like the wheeling condor’s pinions gaunt.

A LULL! and tongues of languid flame Lick every boom, and lambent show Electric ’gainst each face aloft; The herds of clouds with bellowings go: The black ship rears—beset—harassed, Then plunges far with luminous antlers vast.

In trim betimes they turn from land, Some shivered sails and spars they stow; One watch, dismissed, they troll the can, While loud the billow thumps the bow— Vies with the fist that smites the board, Obstreperous at each reveller’s jovial word.

Of royal oak by storms confirmed, The tested hull her lineage shows: Vainly the plungings whelm her prow— She rallies, rears, she sturdier grows: Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home, With batteries housed she rams the watery dome.

DIM seen adrift through driving scud, The wan moon shows in plight forlorn; Then, pinched in visage, fades and fades Like to the faces drowned at morn, When deeps engulfed the flag-ship’s crew, And, shrilling round, the inscrutable haglets flew.

And still they fly, nor now they cry, But constant fan a second wake, Unflagging pinions ply and ply, Abreast their course intent they take; Their silence marks a stable mood, They patient keep their eager neighborhood.

Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea, Heaved in a combing pyramid full, Spent at its climax, in collapse Down headlong thundering stuns the hull: The trophy drops; but, reared again, Shows Mars’ high-altar and contemns the main.

REBUILT it stands, the brag of arms, Transferred in site—no thought of where The sensitive needle keeps its place, And starts, disturbed, a quiverer there; The helmsman rubs the clouded glass— Peers in, but lets the trembling portent pass.

Let pass as well his shipmates do (Whose dream of power no tremors jar) Fears for the fleet convoyed astern: “Our flag they fly, they share our star; Spain’s galleons great in hull are stout: Manned by our men—like us they’ll ride it out.”

Tonight’s the night that ends the week— Ends day and week and month and year: A fourfold imminent flickering time, For now the midnight draws anear: Eight bells! and passing-bells they be— The Old year fades, the Old Year dies at sea.

He launched them well. But shall the New Redeem the pledge the Old Year made, Or prove a self-asserting heir? But healthy hearts few qualms invade: By shot-chests grouped in bays ’tween guns The gossips chat, the grizzled, sea-beat ones.

And boyish dreams some graybeards blab: “To sea, my lads, we go no more Who share the Acapulco prize; We’ll all night in, and bang the door; Our ingots red shall yield us bliss: Lads, golden years begin to-night with this!”

Released from deck, yet waiting call, Glazed caps and coats baptized in storm, A watch of Laced Sleeves round the board Draw near in heart to keep them warm: “Sweethearts and wives!” clink, clink, they meet, And, quaffing, dip in wine their beards of sleet. “Ay, let the star-light stay withdrawn, So here her hearth-light memory fling, So in this wine-light cheer be born, And honor’s fellowship weld our ring— Honor! our Admiral’s aim foretold:

_A tomb or a trophy,_ and lo, ’t is a trophy and gold!” But he, a unit, sole in rank, Apart needs keep his lonely state, The sentry at his guarded door Mute as by vault the sculptured Fate; Belted he sits in drowsy light, And, hatted, nods—the Admiral of the White.

He dozes, aged with watches passed— Years, years of pacing to and fro; He dozes, nor attends the stir In bullioned standards rustling low, Nor minds the blades whose secret thrill Perverts overhead the magnet’s Polar will:—

LESS heeds the shadowing three that play And follow, follow fast in wake, Untiring wing and lidless eye— Abreast their course intent they take; Or sigh or sing, they hold for good The unvarying flight and fixed inveterate mood.

In dream at last his dozings merge, In dream he reaps his victor’s fruit; The Flags-o’-the-Blue, the Flags-o’-the-Red, Dipped flags of his country’s fleets salute His Flag-o’-the-White in harbor proud— But why should it blench? Why turn to a painted shroud?

The hungry seas they hound the hull, The sharks they dog the haglets’ flight; With one consent the winds, the waves In hunt with fins and wings unite, While drear the harps in cordage sound Remindful wails for old Armadas drowned.

Ha—yonder! are they Northern Lights? Or signals flashed to warn or ward? Yea, signals lanced in breakers high; But doom on warning follows hard: While yet they veer in hope to shun, They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are one.

But beating hearts a drum-beat calls And prompt the men to quarters go; Discipline, curbing nature, rules— Heroic makes who duty know: They execute the trump’s command, Or in peremptory places wait and stand.

Yet cast about in blind amaze— As through their watery shroud they peer: “We tacked from land: then how betrayed? Have currents swerved us—snared us here?” None heed the blades that clash in place Under lamps dashed down that lit the magnet’s case.

Ah, what may live, who mighty swim, Or boat-crew reach that shore forbid, Or cable span? Must victors drown— Perish, even as the vanquished did? Man keeps from man the stifled moan; They shouldering stand, yet each in heart how lone.

Some heaven invoke; but rings of reefs Prayer and despair alike deride In dance of breakers forked or peaked, Pale maniacs of the maddened tide; While, strenuous yet some end to earn, The haglets spin, though now no more astern.

Like shuttles hurrying in the looms Aloft through rigging frayed they ply— Cross and recross—weave and inweave, Then lock the web with clinching cry Over the seas on seas that clasp The weltering wreck where gurgling ends the gasp.

Ah, for the Plate-Fleet trophy now, The victor’s voucher, flags and arms; Never they’ll hang in Abbey old And take Time’s dust with holier palms; Nor less content, in liquid night, Their captor sleeps—the Admiral of the White.

Imbedded deep with shells And drifted treasure deep, Forever he sinks deeper in Unfathomable sleep— His cannon round him thrown, His sailors at his feet, The wizard sea enchanting them Where never haglets beat.

On nights when meteors play And light the breakers dance, The Oreads from the caves With silvery elves advance; And up from ocean stream, And down from heaven far, The rays that blend in dream The abysm and the star.

THE AEOLIAN HARP

_At The Surf Inn_

List the harp in window wailing Stirred by fitful gales from sea: Shrieking up in mad crescendo— Dying down in plaintive key!

Listen: less a strain ideal Than Ariel’s rendering of the Real. What that Real is, let hint A picture stamped in memory’s mint.

Braced well up, with beams aslant, Betwixt the continents sails the _Phocion,_ For Baltimore bound from Alicant. Blue breezy skies white fleeces fleck Over the chill blue white-capped ocean: From yard-arm comes—“Wreck ho, a wreck!”

Dismasted and adrift, Longtime a thing forsaken; Overwashed by every wave Like the slumbering kraken; Heedless if the billow roar, Oblivious of the lull, Leagues and leagues from shoal or shore, It swims—a levelled hull: Bulwarks gone—a shaven wreck, Nameless and a grass-green deck. A lumberman: perchance, in hold Prostrate pines with hemlocks rolled.

It has drifted, waterlogged, Till by trailing weeds beclogged: Drifted, drifted, day by day, Pilotless on pathless way. It has drifted till each plank Is oozy as the oyster-bank: Drifted, drifted, night by night, Craft that never shows a light; Nor ever, to prevent worse knell, Tolls in fog the warning bell.

From collision never shrinking, Drive what may through darksome smother; Saturate, but never sinking, Fatal only to the _other!_ Deadlier than the sunken reef Since still the snare it shifteth, Torpid in dumb ambuscade Waylayingly it drifteth.

O, the sailors—O, the sails! O, the lost crews never heard of! Well the harp of Ariel wails Thought that tongue can tell no word of!

TO THE MASTER OF THE _METEOR_

Lonesome on earth’s loneliest deep, Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep— Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep Over monstrous waves that curl and comb; Of thee we think when here from brink We blow the mead in bubbling foam.

Of thee we think, in a ring we link; To the shearer of ocean’s fleece we drink, And the _Meteor_ rolling home.

FAR OFF-SHORE

Look, the raft, a signal flying, Thin—a shred; None upon the lashed spars lying, Quick or dead.

Cries the sea-fowl, hovering over, “Crew, the crew?” And the billow, reckless, rover, Sweeps anew!

THE MAN-OF-WAR HAWK

Yon black man-of-war-hawk that wheels in the light O’er the black ship’s white sky-s’l, sunned cloud to the sight, Have we low-flyers wings to ascend to his height? No arrow can reach him; nor thought can attain To the placid supreme in the sweep of his reign.

THE FIGURE-HEAD

The _Charles-and-Emma_ seaward sped, (Named from the carven pair at prow,) He so smart, and a curly head, She tricked forth as a bride knows how: Pretty stem for the port, I trow!

But iron-rust and alum-spray And chafing gear, and sun and dew Vexed this lad and lassie gay, Tears in their eyes, salt tears nor few; And the hug relaxed with the failing glue.

But came in end a dismal night, With creaking beams and ribs that groan, A black lee-shore and waters white: Dropped on the reef, the pair lie prone: O, the breakers dance, but the winds they moan!

THE GOOD CRAFT _SNOW BIRD_

Strenuous need that head-wind be From purposed voyage that drives at last The ship, sharp-braced and dogged still, Beating up against the blast.

Brigs that figs for market gather, Homeward-bound upon the stretch, Encounter oft this uglier weather Yet in end their port they fetch.

Mark yon craft from sunny Smyrna Glazed with ice in Boston Bay; Out they toss the fig-drums cheerly, Livelier for the frosty ray.

What if sleet off-shore assailed her, What though ice yet plate her yards; In wintry port not less she renders Summer’s gift with warm regards!

And, look, the underwriters’ man, Timely, when the stevedore’s done, Puts on his _specs_ to pry and scan, And sets her down—_A, No. 1._

Bravo, master! Bravo, brig! For slanting snows out of the West Never the _Snow-Bird_ cares one fig; And foul winds steady her, though a pest.

OLD COUNSEL

_Of The Young Master of a Wrecked California Clipper_

Come out of the Golden Gate, Go round the Horn with streamers, Carry royals early and late; But, brother, be not over-elate— _All hands save ship!_ has startled dreamers.

THE TUFT OF KELP

All dripping in tangles green, Cast up by a lonely sea If purer for that, O Weed, Bitterer, too, are ye?

THE MALDIVE SHARK

About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, How alert in attendance be. From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw They have nothing of harm to dread, But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank Or before his Gorgonian head: Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth In white triple tiers of glittering gates, And there find a haven when peril’s abroad, An asylum in jaws of the Fates! They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey, Yet never partake of the treat— Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull, Pale ravener of horrible meat.

TO NED

Where is the world we roved, Ned Bunn? Hollows thereof lay rich in shade By voyagers old inviolate thrown Ere Paul Pry cruised with Pelf and Trade. To us old lads some thoughts come home Who roamed a world young lads no more shall roam.

Nor less the satiate year impends When, wearying of routine-resorts, The pleasure-hunter shall break loose, Ned, for our Pantheistic ports:— Marquesas and glenned isles that be Authentic Edens in a Pagan sea.

The charm of scenes untried shall lure, And, Ned, a legend urge the flight— The Typee-truants under stars Unknown to Shakespere’s _Midsummer-Night;_ And man, if lost to Saturn’s Age, Yet feeling life no Syrian pilgrimage.

But, tell, shall he, the tourist, find Our isles the same in violet-glow Enamoring us what years and years— Ah, Ned, what years and years ago! Well, Adam advances, smart in pace, But scarce by violets that advance you trace.

But we, in anchor-watches calm, The Indian Psyche’s languor won, And, musing, breathed primeval balm From Edens ere yet overrun; Marvelling mild if mortal twice, Here and hereafter, touch a Paradise.

CROSSING THE TROPICS

_From “The Saya-y-Manto.”_

While now the Pole Star sinks from sight The Southern Cross it climbs the sky; But losing thee, my love, my light, O bride but for one bridal night, The loss no rising joys supply.

Love, love, the Trade Winds urge abaft, And thee, from thee, they steadfast waft.

By day the blue and silver sea And chime of waters blandly fanned— Nor these, nor Gama’s stars to me May yield delight since still for thee I long as Gama longed for land.

I yearn, I yearn, reverting turn, My heart it streams in wake astern When, cut by slanting sleet, we swoop Where raves the world’s inverted year, If roses all your porch shall loop, Not less your heart for me will droop Doubling the world’s last outpost drear.

O love, O love, these oceans vast: Love, love, it is as death were past!

THE BERG

_A Dream_

I saw a ship of martial build (Her standards set, her brave apparel on) Directed as by madness mere Against a stolid iceberg steer, Nor budge it, though the infatuate ship went down. The impact made huge ice-cubes fall Sullen, in tons that crashed the deck; But that one avalanche was all No other movement save the foundering wreck.

Along the spurs of ridges pale, Not any slenderest shaft and frail, A prism over glass—green gorges lone, Toppled; nor lace of traceries fine, Nor pendant drops in grot or mine Were jarred, when the stunned ship went down. Nor sole the gulls in cloud that wheeled Circling one snow-flanked peak afar, But nearer fowl the floes that skimmed And crystal beaches, felt no jar. No thrill transmitted stirred the lock Of jack-straw needle-ice at base; Towers undermined by waves—the block Atilt impending—kept their place. Seals, dozing sleek on sliddery ledges Slipt never, when by loftier edges Through very inertia overthrown, The impetuous ship in bafflement went down. Hard Berg (methought), so cold, so vast, With mortal damps self-overcast; Exhaling still thy dankish breath— Adrift dissolving, bound for death; Though lumpish thou, a lumbering one— A lumbering lubbard loitering slow, Impingers rue thee and go down, Sounding thy precipice below, Nor stir the slimy slug that sprawls Along thy dense stolidity of walls.

THE ENVIABLE ISLES

_From “Rammon.”_

Through storms you reach them and from storms are free. Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue, But, nearer, green; and, on the marge, the sea Makes thunder low and mist of rainbowed dew.

But, inland, where the sleep that folds the hills A dreamier sleep, the trance of God, instills— On uplands hazed, in wandering airs aswoon, Slow-swaying palms salute love’s cypress tree Adown in vale where pebbly runlets croon A song to lull all sorrow and all glee.