Carolina Chansons | Page 8

land,?And far lights moved there,?As once Columbus saw them, winking, strange;?Around the ship two darkies 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 its head.
It