John Marr and Other Poems | Page 7

patient keep their eager neighborhood.
Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea,?Heaved in a combing pyramid full,?Spent at its climax, in collapse?Down headlong thundering stuns the hull:?The trophy drops; but, reared again,?Shows Mars' high-altar and contemns the
main.
REBUILT it stands, the brag of arms,?Transferred in site--no thought of where?The sensitive needle keeps its place,?And starts, disturbed, a quiverer there;?The helmsman rubs the clouded glass--?Peers in, but lets the trembling portent pass.
Let pass as well his shipmates do?(Whose dream of power no tremors jar)?Fears for the fleet convoyed astern:?"Our flag they fly, they share our star;?Spain's galleons great in hull are stout:?Manned by our men--like us they'll ride it
out."
Tonight's the night that ends the week--?Ends day and week and month and year:?A fourfold imminent flickering time,?For now the midnight draws anear:?Eight bells! and passing-bells they be--?The Old year fades, the Old Year dies at sea.
He launched them well. But shall the New?Redeem the pledge the Old Year made,?Or prove a self-asserting heir??But healthy hearts few qualms invade:?By shot-chests grouped in bays 'tween guns?The gossips chat, the grizzled, sea-beat ones.
And boyish dreams some graybeards blab:?"To sea, my lads, we go no more?Who share the Acapulco prize;?We'll all night in, and bang the door;?Our ingots red shall yield us bliss:?Lads, golden years begin to-night with this!"
Released from deck, yet waiting call,?Glazed caps and coats baptized in storm,?A watch of Laced Sleeves round the board?Draw near in heart to keep them warm:?"Sweethearts and wives!" clink, clink, they
meet,?And, quaffing, dip in wine their beards of
sleet.?"Ay, let the star-light stay withdrawn,?So here her hearth-light memory fling,?So in this wine-light cheer be born,?And honor's fellowship weld our ring--?Honor! our Admiral's aim foretold:
A tomb or a trophy, and lo, 't is a trophy and
gold!"?But he, a unit, sole in rank,?Apart needs keep his lonely state,?The sentry at his guarded door?Mute as by vault the sculptured Fate;?Belted he sits in drowsy light,?And, hatted, nods--the Admiral of the White.
He dozes, aged with watches passed--?Years, years of pacing to and fro;?He dozes, nor attends the stir?In bullioned standards rustling low,?Nor minds the blades whose secret thrill?Perverts overhead the magnet's Polar will:--
LESS heeds the shadowing three that play?And follow, follow fast in wake,?Untiring wing and lidless eye--?Abreast their course intent they take;?Or sigh or sing, they hold for good?The unvarying flight and fixed inveterate
mood.
In dream at last his dozings merge,?In dream he reaps his victor's fruit;?The Flags-o'-the-Blue, the Flags-o'-the-Red,?Dipped flags of his country's fleets salute?His Flag-o'-the-White in harbor proud--?But why should it blench? Why turn to a
painted shroud?
The hungry seas they hound the hull,?The sharks they dog the haglets' flight;?With one consent the winds, the waves?In hunt with fins and wings unite,?While drear the harps in cordage sound?Remindful wails for old Armadas drowned.
Ha--yonder! are they Northern Lights??Or signals flashed to warn or ward??Yea, signals lanced in breakers high;?But doom on warning follows hard:?While yet they veer in hope to shun,?They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are
one.
But beating hearts a drum-beat calls?And prompt the men to quarters go;?Discipline, curbing nature, rules--?Heroic makes who duty know:?They execute the trump's command,?Or in peremptory places wait and stand.
Yet cast about in blind amaze--?As through their watery shroud they peer:?"We tacked from land: then how betrayed??Have currents swerved us--snared us here?"?None heed the blades that clash in place?Under lamps dashed down that lit the
magnet's case.
Ah, what may live, who mighty swim,?Or boat-crew reach that shore forbid,?Or cable span? Must victors drown--?Perish, even as the vanquished did??Man keeps from man the stifled moan;?They shouldering stand, yet each in heart
how lone.
Some heaven invoke; but rings of reefs?Prayer and despair alike deride?In dance of breakers forked or peaked,?Pale maniacs of the maddened tide;?While, strenuous yet some end to earn,?The haglets spin, though now no more astern.
Like shuttles hurrying in the looms?Aloft through rigging frayed they ply--?Cross and recross--weave and inweave,?Then lock the web with clinching cry?Over the seas on seas that clasp?The weltering wreck where gurgling ends the
gasp.
Ah, for the Plate-Fleet trophy now,?The victor's voucher, flags and arms;?Never they'll hang in Abbey old?And take Time's dust with holier palms;?Nor less content, in liquid night,?Their captor sleeps--the Admiral of the
White.
Imbedded deep with shells?And drifted treasure deep,?Forever he sinks deeper in?Unfathomable sleep--?His cannon round him thrown,?His sailors at his feet,?The wizard sea enchanting them?Where never haglets beat.
On nights when meteors play?And light the breakers dance,?The Oreads from the caves?With silvery elves advance;?And up from ocean stream,?And down from heaven far,?The rays that blend in dream?The abysm and the star.
THE AEOLIAN HARP?At The Surf Inn
List the harp in window wailing?Stirred by fitful gales from sea:?Shrieking up in mad crescendo--?Dying down in plaintive key!
Listen: less a strain ideal?Than Ariel's rendering of the Real.?What that Real is, let hint?A picture stamped in memory's mint.
Braced well up, with beams aslant,?Betwixt the continents sails the Phocion,?For Baltimore bound from Alicant.?Blue breezy skies white fleeces fleck?Over the chill