Carolina Chansons | Page 7

blind search was gone;

With a cheer we swung to meet them
On the forefoot of the dawn.
Out of the screening woodland
Into the open sound
The frigate
crashed, then staggered
Careening, fast aground.
White water tugged behind us,
We felt the Henry reel
And spin as
the hard impartial sand
Closed on her vibrant keel.
All through the high white morning,
While the lagging tide crawled
out,
Fate held us bound and waiting,
While, turn and turn about,
We manned the fuming cannon
And bartered hell for hell,
While
the scuppers sang with coursing life
Where the dead and dying fell.
Till, like the break of fever
When life thrills up through pain,
We
felt the current stirring
Under the keel again.
Then it was hand to cutlass,
And pistols in the sash.
"All hands
stand by for boarding,--
Now, close abeam and lash!"
But the ensign that had mocked us
With its symbol of the dead

Fluttered and dropped to the bloody deck,
And a white square spoke

instead.
Home from the kill we thundered
On the tail of the equinox,
To the
thrum of straining canvas,
And the whine and groan of blocks.
Leaping clear of the shallows,
Chancing the creaming bars,
We
heard the first faint cheering
As the late sun limned our spars.
Safe in the lee of the city
We moored in the afterglow,
The Sea
Nymph_ and the _Henry
With the buccaneers in tow.
Glad we had been in the going,
But God! it was good to come
Out
of the sky-wide loneliness
To the walls and lights of home.
V
Under these shouldering rows of stone
That notch the quiet sky;

Under the asphalt's transient seal
The same old mud-flats lie;
And I
have felt them surge and lift
At night as I passed by.
Yes, I have seen them sprawling nude
While an Autumn moon hung
chill,
And the tide came shuddering in from sea,
Lift by lift, until

It held them under a silver mesh,
Responsive to its will.
Then slowly out from the crowding walls
I have seen the gibbets
grow,
And stand against the empty sky
In a desolate, windblown
row,
While their dancers swayed, and turned, and spun,
Tripping it
heel and toe;
With a flash of gold where the peering moon
Saw an earring as it
swung,
And a silver line that leapt and died
Where the salt-white
sea-boots hung,
And the pitiful, nodding, silent heads,
With half of
their songs unsung.
D.H.

[2] See the note on the pirates.
THE SEWEES OF SEWEE BAY[3]
_"And these squaws, waiting in vain the return of their husbands,
sought out braves among the other tribes, and so men say the Sewees
have become Wandos."_
"One flask of rum for fifty muskrat skins!
A horn of powder for a
bear's is not enough;
A whole winter's hunting for some blanket
stuff--
Ugh!" said the Sewee Chief,
"The pale-face is a thief!"
Ever, from the north-north-east,
The great winged canoes
Swept
landward from the shining water
Into Bull's Bay,
Where the poor
Sewees trapped the otter,
Or took the giant oysters for their feast--

Ever the ships came from the north and east.
Surely, at morning, when they walked the beaches,
Over the
smoky-silver, whispering reaches,
Where the ships came from,
loomed a land,
Far-off, one mountain-top, away
Where the great
camp-fire sun made day:
"There are the pale-face lodges," they would
say.
So all one winter
Was great hunting on that shore;
Much
maize was pounded,
And of acorn oil great store
Was tried;
And
collops of smoked deer meat set aside,
And skins and furs,
And furs
and skins,
And bales of furs beside.
And all that winter, too,
The smoke eddied
From many a huge
canoe,
Hollowed by flame from cypress trees
That with stone ax
and fire
The Sewee shaped to the good shape
Of his desire.
So when next spring
The traders came from Charles Town,

Bringing a gift of blankets from the king,
The Sewees would not
trade a pelt--
Saying, "We go to see
The Great White Father in his
own tepee--
Heap, heap much rum!"
And then they passed the pipe
of peace,

And puffed it, and looked glum.
The traders thought the

redskins must be daft;
They saw the huge canoes,
And, wondering
at their use,
Asked, "What will you do with these?"
And the chief
pointed east across the seas;
And then the pale-face laughed.
And yet--
There was a story told
By one of Black Beard's men

Who had done evil things for gold,
That one morning, out at sea,

The fog made a sudden lift,
And from the high poop, looking through
the rift,
He saw
Twenty canoes, each with six warriors,
Paddling
straight toward the rising sun,
Where the wind made a flaw--
He
swore he saw
And counted twenty hulls,
Circled about by
screaming gulls--
Then such a storm came down
That some prayed
on that hellion ship,
But he did not--
He was not born to drown.
This was the tale
Told with much bluster,
Over ale
And oaths,

At Charles Town.
He swore he saw the Indians in the dawn,
And
he'd be danged!
And by Christ's Mother--
Take his rings in pawn!

But he was hanged
With poor Stede Bonnet, later on.
H.A.
[3] See the note at the back of the book.
LA FAYETTE LANDS[4]
That evening, gathered on the vessel's poop,
They saw the
glimmering land,
And far lights moved there,
As once Columbus
saw them, winking, strange;
Around the ship two darkies