Carolina Chansons | Page 9

its head.
It seemed as if the Banshee storm
Knocked screaming for his
withered form;
It shrieked and whistled like a parrot,
Clucking and
stuttering through the garret.
With-out, the mailéd hands of hail


Battered the casements, and the gale
About his low roof shuddered,
sighing,
As if it knew that he was dying.
It breathed like waiting
beasts outside,
While soft feet made the shingles slide.
Then, like a blow upon the cheek,
The mummy's voice began to
speak:
'Give me a priest! I'm going to die!'
The Banshee wind took up the
cry:
'Give him a priest, he's going to die!'
The old house seemed to
rock with laughter,
Shaking its sides and every rafter.
There was a terror in that room
Like faint light streaming from a
tomb.
I tried three times before I spoke,
And then the bald words
made me choke:
'Be quiet, man, for I am come
To bring you the
viaticum!'--
I made the sign of holiness.
He rattled out a startled cry.

I whispered low, 'Confess, confess!'
His thin hands quivered with
distress.
It is a bitter thing to die.
Just when a blast fell on the town,
I felt his lean claws clutch me
down.
It seemed as if the hands of death
Were beating at my breast
for breath;
His arms were like a twisted rope
Of rotten strands that
tugged at hope.
'Listen, my father, listen well!'
The wind went
tolling like a bell:
'She's lying fifty fathoms deep,
Where fishes like white birds go by

Through water-air in ocean-land;
She has a prayer-book in her
hand--
Tonight she walks; tonight she spoke;
Her hair goes floating
out and up,
Blown one way, with the water weeds,
Always one way,
like amber smoke.
She asks the gift she gave to me--
This ring--I cannot get it off!'
His
hand and hand fought like two claws--
'I hear her calling from the
sea!'
His terror made my own heart pause.
His voice went moaning with the wind,
And groaned and rattled, 'I

have sinned,'
And moaned and murmured at my ear
Of bat-winged
angels standing near.
'The little schooner "Patriot"--
I can't forget the vessel's name;
We
met her rounding Naggs Head Bank;
We made her people walk the
plank,
Twelve men whose faces I forgot.
But there was one sweet lady there,
With lovely eyes and lovely hair,

Whose face has stayed like pain and care.
For every man she made
a prayer;
And when the last had found the sea,
I cried to her to
pray for me.
She prayed--and took this ring, and said:
"Wear this for me when I
am dead."
She bowed her head, then steadfastly
She walked into the
hungry sea.
But silent words were on her lips,
And there was
comfort in her hand;
It was as if she walked a bridge
That led into
a pleasant land.
All that was long and long ago,
So long ago this
ring has grown
To be a very part of me,
One with my finger and the
bone:'
His voice went trailing in a moan.
'This is her ring--
This is her ring!
I dare not die and wear the
thing!'
His hand plucked at his finger thin
As if to ease him of his
sin.
I gave a sudden gasping shout--
The wind that blew the
window in
Had blown the candle out.
'Quick, father, quick!
The ring ... her name....'
There came a jagged
spurt of flame;
The window seemed a furnace door
That gave upon
a bed of ore;
The thunder rumbled out the muttered
Words that his
failing tongue had uttered--
Another flash, a rending crack--

The
old man crumpled like a sack;
I felt his stringy arms go slack.
How
could he sit so dead, so still!
While wind snouts snuffed along the
sill?
White shone his glimmering face, and dull
The sodden silence of the

lull,
For when he died the wind had dropt;
And with his heart the
storm had stopt,
All but a far-off mouthing sound
That seemed to
sough from underground;
While silence paused to plan some ill,

Thwarted by thunder growling still.
All in the darkness of the place

With lightning playing on its face,
I fumbled with the corpse's ring

To which the dead hands seemed to cling;
The stiffening joints were
loth to play--
After awhile it came away!
Out, like a sneak-thief through the gloom,
I tiptoed from the dead
man's room;
The door behind me like a hatch
Banged--the white
splash of my match
Made shadow shapes dance on the wall
As if
the devil pulled the string.
The light ran melting round the ring;

Inside the worn script scrawled a-blur:
'J.A. to Theodosia Burr'

Confession is a sacred thing!
I'll keep his secret like the sea;
The
ring goes to the grave with me."
H.A.
[5] See the note at the back of the book.
PALMETTO TOWN
Sea-island winds sweep through Palmetto Town,
Bringing with piney
tang the old romance
Of Pirates and of smuggling gentlemen;
And
tongues as languorous as southern France
Flow down her streets like
water-talk at fords;
While through iron gates where pickaninnies
sprawl,
The sound floats back, in rippled banjo chords,
From lush
magnolia shade where mockers call.
Mornings, the flower-women
hawk their wares--
Bronze caryatids of a genial race,
Bearing the
bloom-heaped baskets on their heads;
Lithe, with their arms akimbo
in wide grace,
Their jasmine nods jestingly at cares--
Turbaned they
are, deep-chested, straight and tall,
Bandying