John Marr and Other Poems | Page 6

relays of generations young?Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung;?While in sands, sounds, and seas where the?storm-petrels cry,?Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard?singers lie.?Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that?run,?And speeds in life's career many a lavish?mother's-son.
But thou, manly king o' the old Splendid's?crew,?The ribbons o' thy hat still a-fluttering, should?fly--?A challenge, and forever, nor the bravery?should rue.?Only in a tussle for the starry flag high,?When 'tis piety to do, and privilege to die.?Then, only then, would heaven think to lop?Such a cedar as the captain o' the Splendid's?main-top:?A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-hand?Mercutio indifferent in life's gay command.?Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering?shot fell,?"Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank 'em with a?shell!"
Sang Larry o' the Cannakin, smuggler o' the?wine,?At mess between guns, lad in jovial recline:?"In Limbo our Jack he would chirrup up a?cheer,?The martinet there find a chaffing mutineer;?From a thousand fathoms down under hatches?o' your Hades,?He'd ascend in love-ditty, kissing fingers to?your ladies!"
Never relishing the knave, though allowing?for the menial,?Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally?genial.?Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade,?Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade,?Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow?a-sweeping--?Arch iridescent shot from seas languid?sleeping.
Larking with thy life, if a joy but a toy,?Heroic in thy levity wert thou, Jack Roy.
Sea Pieces
THE HAGLETS
By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat?The lichened urns in wilds are lost?About a carved memorial stone?That shows, decayed and coral-mossed,?A form recumbent, swords at feet,?Trophies at head, and kelp for a
winding-sheet.
I invoke thy ghost, neglected fane,?Washed by the waters' long lament;?I adjure the recumbent effigy?To tell the cenotaph's intent--?Reveal why fagotted swords are at feet,?Why trophies appear and weeds are the
winding-sheet.
By open ports the Admiral sits,?And shares repose with guns that tell?Of power that smote the arm'd Plate Fleet?Whose sinking flag-ship's colors fell;?But over the Admiral floats in light?His squadron's flag, the red-cross Flag
of the White.
The eddying waters whirl astern,?The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray;?With bellying sails and buckling spars?The black hull leaves a Milky Way;?Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll,?She revelling speeds exulting with pennon
at pole,
But ah, for standards captive trailed?For all their scutcheoned castles' pride--?Castilian towers that dominate Spain,?Naples, and either Ind beside;?Those haughty towers, armorial ones,?Rue the salute from the Admiral's dens
of guns.
Ensigns and arms in trophy brave,?Braver for many a rent and scar,?The captor's naval hall bedeck,?Spoil that insures an earldom's star--?Toledoes great, grand draperies, too,?Spain's steel and silk, and splendors from
Peru.
But crippled part in splintering fight,?The vanquished flying the victor's flags,?With prize-crews, under convoy-guns,?Heavy the fleet from Opher drags--?The Admiral crowding sail ahead,?Foremost with news who foremost in conflict
sped.
But out from cloistral gallery dim,?In early night his glance is thrown;?He marks the vague reserve of heaven,?He feels the touch of ocean lone;?Then turns, in frame part undermined,?Nor notes the shadowing wings that fan
behind.
There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly,?And follow, follow fast in wake?Where slides the cabin-lustre shy,?And sharks from man a glamour take,?Seething along the line of light?In lane that endless rules the war-ship's flight.
The sea-fowl here, whose hearts none know,?They followed late the flag-ship quelled,?(As now the victor one) and long?Above her gurgling grave, shrill held?With screams their wheeling rites--then sped?Direct in silence where the victor led.
Now winds less fleet, but fairer, blow,?A ripple laps the coppered side,?While phosphor sparks make ocean gleam,?Like camps lit up in triumph wide;?With lights and tinkling cymbals meet?Acclaiming seas the advancing conqueror
greet.
But who a flattering tide may trust,?Or favoring breeze, or aught in end?--?Careening under startling blasts?The sheeted towers of sails impend;?While, gathering bale, behind is bred?A livid storm-bow, like a rainbow dead.
At trumpet-call the topmen spring;?And, urged by after-call in stress,?Yet other tribes of tars ascend?The rigging's howling wilderness;?But ere yard-ends alert they win,?Hell rules in heaven with hurricane-fire
and din.
The spars, athwart at spiry height,?Like quaking Lima's crosses rock;?Like bees the clustering sailors cling?Against the shrouds, or take the shock?Flat on the swept yard-arms aslant,?Dipped like the wheeling condor's pinions
gaunt.
A LULL! and tongues of languid flame?Lick every boom, and lambent show?Electric 'gainst each face aloft;?The herds of clouds with bellowings go:?The black ship rears--beset--harassed,?Then plunges far with luminous antlers vast.
In trim betimes they turn from land,?Some shivered sails and spars they stow;?One watch, dismissed, they troll the can,?While loud the billow thumps the bow--?Vies with the fist that smites the board,?Obstreperous at each reveller's jovial word.
Of royal oak by storms confirmed,?The tested hull her lineage shows:?Vainly the plungings whelm her prow--?She rallies, rears, she sturdier grows:?Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home,?With batteries housed she rams the watery
dome.
DIM seen adrift through driving scud,?The wan moon shows in plight forlorn;?Then, pinched in visage, fades and fades?Like to the faces drowned at morn,?When deeps engulfed the flag-ship's crew,?And, shrilling round, the inscrutable haglets
flew.
And still they fly, nor now they cry,?But constant fan a second wake,?Unflagging pinions ply and ply,?Abreast their course intent they take;?Their silence marks a stable mood,?They