Behind the Arras | Page 5

laboring vast, Tellurian Galleon,?Riding at anchor off the orient sun,?Had broken its cable, and stood out to space.
FRANCIS THOMPSON.
Galleon, ahoy, ahoy!?Old earth riding off the sun,?And straining at your cable as you ride?On the tide,?Battered laboring and vast,?In the blast?Of the hurricane that blows between the worlds,?Ahoy!
'Morning, shipmates! 'Drift and chartless??Laded deep and rolling hard??Never guessed, outworn and heartless,?There was land so close aboard?
Ice on every shroud and eyelet,?Rocking in the windy trough??No more panic; Man's your pilot;?Turns the flood, and we are off!
At the story of disaster,?From the continents of sleep,?I am come to be your master?And put out into the deep.
What tide current struck you hither,?Beating up the storm of years??Where are those who stood to weather?These uncharted gulfs of tears?
Did your fellows all drive under?In the maelstrom of the sun,?While you only, for a wonder,?Rode the wash you could not shun?
We'll crowd sail across the sea-line,--?Clear this harbor, reef and buoy,?Bowling down an open bee-line?For the latitudes of joy;
Till beyond the zones of sorrow,?Past griefs haven in the night,?Some large simpler world shall morrow?This pale region's northern light.
Not a fear but all the sea-room,?Wherein time is but a bay,?Yet shall sparkle for our lee-room?In the vast Altrurian day.
And the dauntless seaworn spirit?Shall awake to know there are?What dominions to inherit,?Anchored off another star!
[Illustration]
_A Song Before Sailing_
"Cras ingens iterabimus aequor."
Wind of the dead men's feet,?Blow down the empty street?Of this old city by the sea?With news for me!
Blow me beyond the grime?And pestilence of time!?I am too sick at heart to war?With failure any more.
Thy chill is in my bones;?The moonlight on the stones?Is pale, and palpable, and cold;?I am as one grown old.
I call from room to room?Through the deserted gloom;?The echoes are all words I know,?Lost in some long ago.
I prowl from door to door,?And find no comrade more.?The wolfish fear that children feel?Is snuffing at my heel.
I hear the hollow sound?Of a great ship coming round,?The thunder of tackle and the tread?Of sailors overhead.
That stormy-blown hulloo?Has orders for me, too.?I see thee, hand at mouth, and hark,?My captain of the dark.
O wind of the great East,?By whom we are released?From this strange dusty port to sail?Beyond our fellows' hail,
Under the stars that keep?The entry of the deep,?Thy somber voice brings up the sea's?Forgotten melodies;
And I have no more need?Of bread, or wine, or creed,?Bound for the colonies of time?Beyond the farthest prime.
Wind of the dead men's feet,?Blow through the empty street!?The last adventurer am I,?Then, world, good-by!
_In the Wings_
The play is Life; and this round earth,?The narrow stage whereon?We act before an audience?Of actors dead and gone.
There is a figure in the wings?That never goes away,?And though I cannot see his face,?I shudder while I play.
His shadow looms behind me here,?Or capers at my side;?And when I mouth my lines in dread,?Those scornful lips deride.
Sometimes a hooting laugh breaks out,?And startles me alone;?While all my fellows, wondering?At my stage-fright, play on.
I fear that when my Exit comes,?I shall encounter there,?Stronger than fate, or time, or love,?And sterner than despair,
The Final Critic of the craft,?As stage tradition tells;?And yet--perhaps 'twill only be?The jester with his bells.
[Illustration]
_The Red Wolf_
With the fall of the leaf comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,?The old red wolf at my door.?And my hateful yellow dwarf, with his hideous crooked laugh, Cries "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at my door.
With the still of the frost comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,?The gaunt red wolf at my door.?He's as tall as a Great Dane, with his grizzly russet mane; And he haunts the silent woods at my door.
The scarlet maple leaves and the sweet ripe nuts,?May strew the forest glade at my door,?But my cringing cunning dwarf, with his slavered kacking laugh, Cries "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at my door.
The violets may come, the pale wind-flowers blow,?And tremble by the stream at my door;?But my dwarf will never cease, until his last release,?From his "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at the door.
The long sweet April wind may woo the world from grief,?And tell the old tales at my door;?The rainbirds in the rain may plead their far refrain,?In the glad young year at my door;
And in the quiet sun, the silly partridge brood?In the red pine dust by my door;?Yet my squinting runty dwarf, with his lewd ungodly laugh,?Cries "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at my door.
I'm his master (and his slave, with his "Wolf, wolf, wolf!") As he squats in the sun at my door.?There morn and noon and night, with his cuddled low delight, He watches for the wolf at my door.
The wind may parch his hide, or freeze him to the bone,?While the wolf walks far from the door;?Still year on year he sits, with his five unholy wits,?And watches for the wolf at the door.
But the fall of the leaf and the starting of the bud?Are the seasons he