Carolina Chansons | Page 8

in a small
canoe
Paddled and grinned, and held up silver fish.
Over the high ship's tumble-home
A pinnace slid,
Slow, lowered
from the squealing davit-ropes,

And from a port a-square with lantern
light,
The little, leather trunks were passed,
Ironbound and quaint;
while down the vessel's side
With voluble advice, bon voyage_ and
_au revoir,
The chatting Frenchmen came--
Click-clap of rapiers
clipping on hard boots,
Cocked hats and merry eyes.

The great ship backs its yards,
With drooping sails, await,
A
spider-web of spars and lantern-lights,
While like a pilot shark, the
slim canoe,
A V-shaped ripple wrinkling from its jaws,
Slides
noiselessly across the swells,
Leading the swinging boat's crew to the
beach;
And all the world slides up--
And then the stars slide down--

As ocean breathes; while evening falls,
And destiny is being rowed
ashore.
The twilight-muffled bells of town, the bark of dogs,
The distant
shouts, and smell of burning wood,
Fall graciously upon their
sea-tired sense.
Wide-trousered, barefoot sailors carry them to land,

Tho' snake-voiced waves flaunt frothing up the beach;
The
horse-hide trunks are piled upon a dune;
And there a little Frenchman
takes his stand,
Hawk-faced and ardent,
While his brown cloak
droops about him
Like young falcon plumes.
Gray beach, gray twilight, and gray sea--
How strange the scrub
palmettoes down the coast!
No purple-castled heights, like dear
Auvergne,
Against the background of the Puy de Dome,
But land as
level as the sea, a sandy road
That twists through myrtle thickets

Where the black boys lead.
Far down a moss-draped avenue of oaks

There is a flash of torches, and the lights
Go flitting past the bottle
panes;
A cracked plantation bell dull-clangs;
The beagles bay,

Black faces swarm, with ivory eyeballs glazed--
Court dwarfs that
served thick chocolate, on their knees In damasked, perfumed rooms at
grand Versailles,
Were all the blacks the French had ever seen.
Major Huger, lace-ruffled shirt, knee-breeks,
A saddle-pistol in his
hand,
Waits on the terrace,
Ready for "hospitality" to British
privateers;
But now no London accent takes his ears,
No English
bow so low, "Good evening,
sair;
I am de la Fayette, and these,
monsieur,
My friends, and this, le Baron Kalb."
Welcome's the custom of the time and land--
And these are noblemen

of France!
Now is Bartholomew for turkeycocks,
Old wines decant,
the chandeliers flare up,
The slave row brims with lights;
And
horses gallop off to summon guests.
After the ship--how good the spacious rooms!
How strange mosquito
canopies on beds!
Knights of St. Louis sniff the frying yams,

Venison, and turtle,--
The old green turtle died tonight--
The
children's eyes grow wider on the stairs.
Down in the library,
The Marquis, writing back to old Auvergne,

Has sanded down the ink;
Again the quill pen squeaks:
"A ship will
sail tomorrow back to France,
By special providence for you, dear
wife;
Tonight there will be toasts to Washington,
To our good
Louis and his Antoinette--
There will be toasts tonight for la
Fayette...."
He melts the wax;
Look, how the candle gutters at the
flame!
And now he seals the letter with his ring.
H.A.
[4] See the note at the back of the book.
THE PRIEST AND THE PIRATE[5]
A BALLAD OF THEODOSIA BURR
And must the old priest wake with fright
Because the wind is high
tonight?
Because the yellow moonlight dead
Lies silent as a word
unsaid--
What dreams had he upon his bed?
Listen--the storm!
The winter moon scuds high and bare;
Her light is old upon his hair;

The gray priest muses in a prayer:
"Christ Jesus, when I come to die
Grant me a clean, sweet, summer
sky,
Without the mad wind's panther cry.
Send me a little garden

breeze
To gossip in magnolia trees;
For I have heard, these fifty
years,
Confessions muttered at my ears,
Till every mumble of the
wind
Is like tired voices that have sinned,
And furtive skirling of
the leaves
Like feet about the priest-house eaves,
And moans seem
like the unforgiven
That mutter at the gate of heaven,
Ghosts from
the sea that passed unshriven.
And it was just this time of night
There came a boy with lantern light

And he was linen-pale with fright;
It was not hard to guess my task,

Although I raised the sash to ask--
'Oh, Father,' cried the boy, 'Oh,
come!
Quickly with the viaticum!
The sailor-man is going to die!'

The thirsty silence drank his cry.
A starless stillness damped the air,

While his shrill voice kept piping there,
'The sailor-man is going to
die'--
The huge drops splattered from the sky.
I shivered at my midnight toil,
But took the elements and oil,
And
hurried down into the street
That barked and clamored at our feet--

And as we ran there came a hum
Of round shot slithered on a drum,

While like a lid of sound shut down
The thunder-cloud upon the
town;
Jalousies banged and loose roofs slammed,
Like hornbooks
fluttered by the damned;
And like a drover's whip the rain
Cracked
in the driving hurricane.
Only the lightning showed the door
That like two cats we darted for;

It almost gave a man a qualm
To find the house inside so calm.
I sloshed all dripping up the stair,
Up to an attic room a-glare
With
candle-shine and lightning-flare--
With little draughts that moved its
hair
A wrinkled mummy sat a-stare,

Rigid, huddling in a chair.
I
thought at first the thing was dead
Until the eyes slid in