Carolina Chansons | Page 6

once where these rows of deep piazzas
Frown on the harbor
from their columned pride,
And saw the gallant youngest of the cities

Lift from the jealous many-fingered tide.
Flanked by the
multi-colored sweeping marshes,
Among the little hummocks choked
with thorn,
I saw the first, small, dauntless row of buildings
Give
back the rose and orange of the dawn.
Above them swayed the
shining green palmettoes
Vocal and plaintive at the winds' caress;

While, at the edge of sight, the fluent silver
Of sea and bay framed
the wide loneliness.
Out of the East came gaunt razees of commerce
Troubling the
dappled azure of the seas;
While sleeping marsh awoke, and vanished
under
The thrusting open fingers of the quays.
Ever, and more, came ships, while others followed.
Feeling their way
among unsounded bars,
Heaping their freights upon the groaning
wharf-heads,
Filling their holds with turpentines and tars,
Until the
little twisting streets all vanished
Into a blur of interwoven spars.
II
One with the rest, I saw the commerce dwindle,
High-bosomed,
sturdy vessels take the main
And leave us, with the morning in their
faces,
Never to come to any port again.
Slowly an ominous and
pregnant silence
Grew deep upon the wharves where ships had lain.
Laughter rang hollow in those days of waiting,
And nameless fears
came drifting down the night.
The tides swung in from sea, hung, and
retreated,
Bearing their secrets back beyond our sight;
Till, like the
sudden rending of a curtain,
The East reeled with the lightnings of a
fight.
Never was a night so long with waiting.
Never was the dark more
prone to stay.
And, in the whispering gloom, taut, listening faces


Hung in a pallid line along the bay.
Slowly at last the mists dissolved,
revealing
A fearful silhouette against the day.
Blue on a saffron dawn, a frigate lifted
Out of the fog that veiled her
fold on fold,
Taking the early sunlight on her cannon
In running
spurts and rings of molten gold;
No flag of any nation at her
masthead.
Small wonder that our pulses fluttered cold.
Never a shot she fired on the city,
But, when the night came blowing
in from sea,
And our ruddy windows warmed the darkness,

Through the surrounding gloom we heard the free
Strong sweep and
clank of rowing in the harbor,
And on the wharves raw jest and
revelry.
She was the first, but many others followed;
Insolent, keen, and swift
to come-about,
I have seen them go smashing down the harbor,

Loud with the boom of canvas and the shout
Of lusty voices at the
crowded bulwarks,
Where tattooed hands were swinging long-boats
out.
Up through the streets the roisterers would swagger,
Filling the
narrow ways from wall to wall,
Scattering gold like ringing summer
showers,
Ready with song and jest and cheery call
For those who
passed; buying the little taverns
At any cost; opening wine for all.
There were rare evenings when we used to gather
Down in a
coffee-house beside the square.
Morgan knew well our little favored
corner;
Black Beard the sinister was often there;
And we have
watched the night blur into morning
While Bonnet, quiet-voiced and
debonnaire,
Would throw the glamor of the seas about us
In archipelagoes of mad
romance;
Pointing a story with a line from Shakespeare,
Quoting a
Latin proverb; while his glance,
Flashing across the eager, listening

circle,
Fettered--blinded--held us in a trance.
Their bags of Spanish gold bribed our juries,
Bought dignified
officials of the Crown;
Money and wine were ours for the asking;

The Orient flamed out in shawl and gown,
Until a sudden and unholy
splendor
Irradiated all the quiet town.
Those were the days when there was open gaming,
And roaring song
in tongue of every race.
Evil, as colorful as poison weeds,
Bloomed
in the market place.
And those who should have known, shared in the
revels,
And passed their neighbors with averted face.
Until one day a frigate entered harbor,
And passed the city, with a
Spanish prize,
Then insolently came-about, despoiled her,
And
fired her before our very eyes,
While the vagrant breezes left the
streaming vapor
Like red rust on the clean steel of the skies.
III
All in the sullied hours,
While the pirates stood away
Out of the
murk and horror
In a sheer white burst of spray,
Leaving the wreck to settle
Under its winding sheet,
I felt the city
shudder
And stir beneath my feet.
Thrilling against the morning,
As audible as song,
I heard the city
waken
Out of her night of wrong.
That was a day to cherish
When Rhett and a gallant few
Summoned
the best among us;
Called for a daring crew.
New and raw at the business,
To the smithy's roar and clang,
We
drove our aching muscles
And as we worked we sang,
Until one blowing morning
With summer on the sea,
The Henry to

the windward,
The Sea Nymph down alee,
Flecking the wide Atlantic
With a flaring, lacy track,
We went, as
glad as the winds are glad,
To buy our honor back.
IV
Over the wooded shore-line,
Where the hidden rivers stray
Down to
the sea like timid girls,
I saw in the first faint gray
A burst of cloudy topsails
Go blowing swiftly by,
With the stars
aswirl behind them
Like bright dust down the sky.
Gone were the days of waiting,
And the long,