Chapter III

Shades of vessels that have passed
Rope and sail and yellow mast--
On the seafolks' town are cast;
And the Merking, startled by
Shadows in his crystal sky,
Calls the guard at palace gate,
Where he reigns in ancient state,
Sitting on a coral throne,
With sea-mosses overgrown--
Calls his guard to send a slave
Skyward, soaring thro' the wave,
To command the mariner
To move on. The messenger,
A dolphin bold,
With back of gold,
Swiftly cleaving, swirling, leaving
A flashing trail,
As from each scale
And finny tip
A silver spray of bubbles slip.
Higher, higher rises he,
Till from the surface of the sea
He leaps, and gloriously
Rolls his flashing coat of mail
In the splendor of the day.
Then the sailors trim the sail,
Knowing that the sprightly gale
Cometh when the dolphins play.
Haste away! Haste away!
For the breeze
Frets the seas,
And the rim of opal hue
Burns a green and flames a blue.

THE OLD BUCCANEER'S SONG.

Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
And I feel the breezes blowing and see those isles again--
Those isles of peace and plenty where we loved to linger long,
To woo the black-eyed Carib maid who sang the rover's song;
Who, resting in the palm shade when the sun was fierce above,
With many a tender measure taught us what indeed is love.

Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
And I hear my comrades calling me back to them again;
For 'tis where the breakers, roaring, flash in and beat the sand--
'Tis where the feathery plantain shakes its shadow on the strand;
'Neath orange and palmetto and many a flowery tree
Dwell the gallant privateersmen who drink and think of me.

Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main--
I see our banners flying and I hear the cheers again:
When with many a reckless comrade in vessel tall and true,
Before the constant trade-wind to the south-and-west we flew,
And ere the haughty Spaniard had thought of danger near
Town and tower and galleon were spoil of buccaneer.

Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
And many a pearl and red doubloon chink in my hand again.
Back, back unto the sunny isle to rest a season there--
To bind a lace of priceless gems in my sweet Carib's hair,
To feel her arms about my neck, to hear her sing again
The pleasures and the glories of our life along the main.

Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
For I am weary waiting for those days to come again.
A curse upon this slothful life and this black northern land!
Oh, give to me the sapphire sea and southern strand!
Oh, let me hear but once again my comrades' ringing cheers,
And lead to spoil and victory the dashing buccaneers.

THE BELFRY OF THE SEA.

_Men who bless them
And caress them--
Bells that call upon the land--
Curse and chide them,
Mock, deride them,
When they shout above a sand.
Not alone are bells thus treated,
For the story is repeated
In the world of every day;
He who flings us--
He who brings us--
Joys and pleasures all may share,
Has our blessings for his pay;
But he who warns us--
He who mourns us,
Bids us to the watch and ware--
Has our curses,
And reverses
In the moulds that mint our prayer._

O singer of the sailor's song,
Fear not to sing me broad and strong--
Fear not to sing me in the van
Of those who stand and strive for man;
And if they make the question, then
Come tell me what man does for men.

I am the Belfry of the Sea,
The rider of the swell,
The guardsman of the deadly lee,
The outer sentinel.

Man placed me here to watch this sand--
This sneaking, shifting shoal--
He shaped me with a clever hand,
So that my bell doth toll
With every move and motion
Of the changeful, changeless ocean.

Mine is a thankless task;
But no recompense I ask.
I am hated by the shoal;
I am hated by the sea;
And the very fish that bask
In the shadow of my cask
Are half afraid of me.

The land wind speaks me fair,
For it has no thought or care
With the deeds that are done
In the midnight and the gale;
And it bears me on its wing
A welcome offering
Of the shouting of the upland
And the chatter of the shale.

But most I love the weather
When the wind and sea together
Lie locked in summer slumber
And the sky sleeps overhead,
For then I ease the strain
On my anchor and my chain,
And ring a muffled service
For my shattered, scattered dead.

I am never wholly sad;
I am never wholly glad;
For my sadness is half madness
And my gladness is half sadness
For the remnants of the wrecks
That lie below me cast
A gloom upon the wave,
And my sunny days are past
Sleeping in the shadow
That is shaken from a grave.

'Twas not I who betrayed them;
'Twas not I who waylaid them;
But they died with curses for me
On their water-wasted lips.
I did my best to save them
The warning that I gave them
Is the warning that has succored
Ten thousand watchful ships.

Ah, had they used the lead!
Ah, had they tacked instead
Of standing blindly onward
Without a watch for me!
They would have heard me tolling;
They would have seen me rolling;
And have had a chance to weather
And gain the open sea.

For I mark a dreaded danger
To the coaster and the stranger,
For my friend below is silent
And shows no foamy chain.
Not like the sunken ledge;
Not like the reefs that wedge
The surges from the undergrip
And hurl them out again.

For the reef it warns the ship
By the frothing and the snowing
Of its rocky underlip;
For it shows its broken teeth,
And it bares the bone beneath,
And roars sometimes in anger,
And it cries sometimes in grief.

But this sluggish and this sucking spread of sand
It is dead to ear and eye;
And its very bounds defy
The laws that keep in order
The stout and stable land.

It changes every storm;
And I never know its form--
I who gird and guard it
With my constant clanging bell--
It scarcely gives me hold
For my anchor in its mold;
And we shift and change together
With each mighty, moving swell.

But I rob it of its prey,
For the ships have time to stay,
When the wind takes up my music
And bears it out to sea;
But when the Easters roar
And drive upon the shore
My loudest cry of warning
Is tossed and lost a-lee.

Then, then I cry in anger,
And the clanging and the clangor
Shake and shock the bars
Of my tossing, toiling cage;
And I curse the wind and sea,
And the chain that's under me
Strains its links and surges
With the transports of my rage.

For I know I cannot save them;
And the shoal that thinks to grave them--
That will feed its thousand acres
On their oaken frames and sides--
It seems to mound its spread,
It seems to lift its head,
As though to make more deadly
The tangle of its tides.

In the snow, in the fog,
When the sharpest eyes are blind;
When the ocean
Has scarce motion,
And the wind
Has forsaken;
When my power of speech is taken,
And I sit in silent pain;
When I toil and toil in vain
To force the larum note
From the muscles of my throat,
And it only breathes a toll
That dies upon the shoal;
And I strive and I writhe
With the pain of action palsied
By a force beyond control.
When I cannot see or hear them;
When I cannot warn or cheer them;
And only know that they are there
By the throbbing of my soul.

For I know that they will blame me;
For I know that they will name me
With the bitterest of curses
For the silence of my note,
And I stoop and pray the sea
To lend its aid to me;
But it mocks me with a ripple
That scarcely wets my float.

And then I hear them calling,
As slowly, slowly crawling
They come working in from seaward
With their whistles crying _where_?
And I try to answer back
That I'm lying in the track;
But the loudest cry I make them
Is a thread upon the air.

_Swing--swing--
Ring--ring--
Roll--roll--
Toll--toll--
Just a thing
Without a soul,
Doing its duty on the shoal;
Just a bell
That sea and swell
In their fury, in their play,
Set a throbbing,
And a sobbing;
By their very madness robbing--
By their rage and rush defeating,
By their hate and hurry cheating--
Ocean of its prey.
Swing--swing--
Ring--ring--
Roll--roll--
Toll--toll._

PHANTOMS.

Like a tide that runs increasing,
Bearing ships to port again,
There's a tide that brings unceasing
Pleasures to my restless brain.

When at night I sit and swinging
Idly to a strain of thought,
Then it flows, resistless, bringing
Countless tales with pleasure fraught.

And it seems as though the olden
Stories of the mystic sea
Came like ships to bear their golden,
Precious cargoes unto me.

For I hail with deep emotion
All those gray and ghostly forms,
Phantoms of the shoreless ocean
That is swept by constant storms.

And I see from mist-enshrouded,
Ancient, half-forgotten tales
Galleons rise, and memory clouded,
Pass with faint and formless sails.

Others come, the tall and splendid
Monarchs of the oaken side,
Who, with master arms, contended
For the empire of the tide.

One by one they pass in glory--
Stately shapes that led the van--
Builders of the ocean's story,
Noblest gift of man to man.

And not less the worn and shattered,
Drifting, find my port at last.
All the stranded, stove, and battered
Victims of the wave and blast,

They are mine by right of capture:
Buccaneer and ship of plate;
And I search their holds with rapture
Till the night grows cold and late;

Till the moon, high-prowed and dipping,
Like a ship of ancient worth,
Leaves her cloudy port and slipping,
Spins her wake across the earth.

And the wind, to peace consenting,
Breathes a hymn above the land;
And the ocean, half repenting,
Kneels in prayer along the sand.

FLOTSAM.

For the tide runs in and the tide runs out,
And the women they talk and wait,
For hope has a soul that is built of doubt,
And our ships are ofttimes late.

And the tide runs up and the tide runs down,
And the drift goes floating past;
A message it bears to the waiting town
In form of a broken mast.

Look! no seaweed yellows its shattered ends!
No shell-fish whiten its girth!
'Tis a message, they cry, old Ocean sends
To those they have left on earth!

And the tide runs up and the tide runs down,
And the sea reclaims its toll;
But the hopes that live in that stricken town
Are those hopes that have no soul.

THE LOST SHIP.

Who saw the ship going down to the sea
With her topsails sheeted home, and her spanker
Swelling like a course, foam along the lee,
And the crew on the tackle of the anchor?

Who saw her running off from the land,
Wind blowing strong, steering true for the light-ship,
But went away wishing he might command
Some future day such a tall, such a tight ship?

Came she never back again to that port?
Long did they wait, watching out at eve and morn.
Last was she seen hove-to with canvas short
By an eastward bounder scudding past the Horn.

Who saw her sink that midnight in the storm?
Where does she lie, rig-tangled and hull-broken?
Sails she, perhaps, a ghostly, gliding form,
That silent sea where ships are never spoken?

THE MAIN-SHEET SONG.

Rushing along on a narrow reach,
Our rival under the lee,
The wind falls foul of the weather leach,
And the jib flaps fretfully.
The skipper casts a glance along,
And handles his wheel to meet--
Then sings in the voice of a stormy song,
"All hands get on that sheet!"

Yo ha! Yo ho! Then give her a spill,
With a rattle of blocks abaft.
Yo ha! Yo ho! Come down with a will
And bring the main-sheet aft.

Rolling the foam up over the rail
She smokes along and flings
A spurt of spray in the curving sail,
And plunges and rolls and springs;
For a wild, wet spot is the scuppers' sweep,
As we stand to our knees along--
It's a foot to make and a foot to keep
As we surge to the bullie's song.

Yo ha! Yo ho! Then give her a spill
With a rattle of blocks abaft.
Yo ha! Yo ho! Come down with a will
And bring the main-sheet aft.

Muscle and mind are a winning pair
With a lively plank below,
That whether the wind be foul or fair
Will pick up her heels and go;
For old hemp and hands are shipmates long--
There's work whenever they meet--
So here's to a pull that's steady and strong,
When all hands get on the sheet.

Yo ha! Yo ho! Then give her a spill
With a rattle of blocks abaft.
Yo ha! Yo ho! Come down with a will
And bring the main-sheet aft.

THE LANDFALL

The scent of the soil is strong on the breeze,
The gulls are many and shrill,
And over the crest of the cresting seas
Is floating a rosy hill;
And right at the base of this filmy shape,
Just clear of the weather shroud,
Say, is it ship, or is it a cape,
Or a hard spot in the cloud?
But hark! from aloft where the seaman swings,
And points with an eager hand,
Then fore and aft the glad cry rings--
Land, ho, land!

THE CLIPPER.

Her sails are strong and yellow as the sand,
Her spars are tall and supple as the pine,
And, like the bounty of a generous mine,
Sun-touched, her brasses flash on every hand.
Her sheer takes beauty from a golden band,
Which, sweeping aft, is taught to twist and twine
Into a scroll, and badge of quaint design
Hang on her quarters. Insolent and grand
She drives. Her stem rings loudly as it throws
The hissing sapphire into foamy waves,
While on her weather bends the copper glows
In burnished splendor. Rolling down she laves
Her high black sides until the scupper flows,
Then pushing out her shapely bow she braves
The next tall sea, and, leaping, onward goes.

THE CONSTITUTION.

Where Glory dwells a hundred years,
That spot becomes a shrine,
The very soil she trod appears
To bear the touch divine;
The rusted gun, the shattered blade,
Are kept with sacred hand,
And Honor bows before the shade
That fought to save the land.

Then why neglect--why give to rot
This victor of the flood?
Is she less holy than the spot
That drank a hero's blood?
Has she no plume to wing a thought--
No spark to fire a mind?
In names like her's such deeds are wrought
As glorify mankind.

And they, whose mighty banner fell
Before her lightning's blast,
Their victor rides the harbor swell
Unshorn of yard and mast;
And Glory gilds her like a sun,
When, steaming thro' the wave,
With dipping flag and rapid gun,
The brave salute the brave.

Then give ours back, the sail, the spar--
Go let her broadside roar!
A gun for every glit'ring star
Her conquering ensign bore.
To show ye have not held in vain
The heritage she kept,
Oh, let her image grace again
The sea she proudly swept!

THE TARTAR.

The wind from East to South has shifted,
The sea's gone down and the clouds are rifted,
And broad on the larboard bow are seen
A full-rigged ship and a brigantine,
With a topsail schooner in between--
All bound to London Town.

The ship with a golden freight is freighted,
The old brigantine with coal is weighted,
The schooner's a slippery privateer,
With roguish rig and a saucy sheer--
Her cargo is guns and hearts of cheer--
All bound to London Town.

A Frenchman out of old Brest is cruising,
"A chance," says he, "there's no refusing.
I will drive that privateer away;
The ship and the brig will be my prey,
For we don't meet prizes every day--
All bound to London Town."

Then, crowding sail, on the wind he hurried;
The ship and the brig they worried and scurried.
The privateer, with her canvas short,
Just showed a muzzle at every port,
For she'd a crew of the fighting sort--
When bound to London Town.

The Frenchman tacked the weather gauge after;
The privateer cut the sea abaft her;
Before she had time to ease a turn
They drove a broadside into her stern,
For fighting's a trade one's apt to learn--
When bound to London Town.

Then side by side with their guns they pounded,
Till catching a puff the schooner rounded,
And ere they had way to do the like,
She laid them aboard with blade and pike,
So what could the Brestman do but strike--
And go to London Town?

The wind from East to the South has shifted,
The sea's gone down and the clouds are rifted,
And broad on the larboard bow are seen
A privateer and a brigantine,
With a captured Frenchman in between--
All bound to London Town.

WARNING.

When the old moon hangs to the cloud's gray tail
And the stars play in and out;
When the East grows red and the West looks pale
And the wind goes knocking about;

When over the edge of the shapeless coast,
Where the horizon bites the cloud,
The rack of the rain stalks in like a ghost
And a sail blows through its shroud--

When the morn is such, of the noon beware!
For this calm's a stormy feint:
A reef in the sail is better than prayer,
For a snug ship needs no saint.

IN SEPTEMBER.

Oh, the wind, the wind,
And the white wake behind;
And the land
Of yellow sand,
Looming like a band
Of gold along the rim;
And the laughter of the sea,
And the sense of mystery,
In the dim
Stretch of lee,
Where the haze
In the blaze
Of heat seems to meet
The sky.
Oh, the happy sails that fly
To the east, to the south,
And the light-house at the mouth
Of the bay
With its gray
Granite spire
Bold against the higher
Lift o' green,
And a smoky tug-boat's trail
Flaunting like a tail
Of stormy cloud,
And a steamer in between
With her paddles whirring round.
Oh, a day upon the Sound,
With the wind, the wind,
Coming out behind,
And the feeling of content
That is lent
To the mind,
When the sailing breeze is fair,
And your only thought or care
Is to keep
The sails asleep,
And run,
Until the sun
Drops in the West--
Then rest is best.

THE HOMEWARD BOUNDER'S SONG.

There's many a ship with taller mast,
There's many of squarer yard,
There's many a one that sails as fast
And many that roll as hard;
With decks as white, with paint as bright,
With hull as staunch and sound;
But never ship that steers so light
As the ship that's homeward bound!

_Then give her a spoke, and keep her west,
Hurrah, for the world is round!
And here's to the ship that steers the best--
Hurrah for the homeward bound!_

There's many a port in distant land
And many a splendid sight,
Where turret slim and palace grand
Rise skyward tall and white;
Where castles rear, and far and near
Shines many a golden dome;
But never sight that's half so dear
As the dear old port at home.

_Then give her a spoke, and keep her west,
Hurrah for a breeze astern!
And here's to the port we love the best--
The port where the twin-lights burn!_

There's many a maid of fashion rare
In warm and palmy lands,
With sea-deep eyes and night-black hair
And brown and shapely hands;
With lips as red as ever led
The heart of a man to roam,
But never one we'd take instead
Of the girl that waits at home.

_Then give her a spoke and keep her west,
Hurrah for a wake of foam!
And here's to the girl we love the best--
The girl that we leave at home._

THE SPELL OF THE SEA.

By the sea I sit and dream
Of things that have passed, and now
Are fading as fades the gleam
Of sail on the ocean's brow,
And I hear that song again
She sang to the world before
Men had crossed her glit'ring plain
To die on the further shore.

'Tis a song that, like the wind
In a stormy counterpart,
Rouses and rolls the restless mind,
Till it breaks against the heart--
Till it hurls its foam amain
On the reefs which gird that lee--
And the heart is swept again
By that yearning for the sea.

Ah, the sea it sings that song
Whenever the moon is full--
Whenever the wind is strong,
And the tides are bountiful--
And it throws a spell o'er one
That my heart cannot withstand,
So clearly do I foresee
That I shall not die on land.

DAYS OF OAK.