Carolina Chansons | Page 7

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, 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