John Marr and Other Poems | Page 8

blue white-capped ocean:?From yard-arm comes--"Wreck ho, a
wreck!"
Dismasted and adrift,?Longtime a thing forsaken;?Overwashed by every wave?Like the slumbering kraken;?Heedless if the billow roar,?Oblivious of the lull,?Leagues and leagues from shoal or shore,?It swims--a levelled hull:?Bulwarks gone--a shaven wreck,?Nameless and a grass-green deck.?A lumberman: perchance, in hold?Prostrate pines with hemlocks rolled.
It has drifted, waterlogged,?Till by trailing weeds beclogged:?Drifted, drifted, day by day,?Pilotless on pathless way.?It has drifted till each plank?Is oozy as the oyster-bank:?Drifted, drifted, night by night,?Craft that never shows a light;?Nor ever, to prevent worse knell,?Tolls in fog the warning bell.
From collision never shrinking,?Drive what may through darksome smother;?Saturate, but never sinking,?Fatal only to the other!?Deadlier than the sunken reef?Since still the snare it shifteth,?Torpid in dumb ambuscade?Waylayingly it drifteth.
O, the sailors--O, the sails!?O, the lost crews never heard of!?Well the harp of Ariel wails?Thought that tongue can tell no word of!
TO THE MASTER OF THE METEOR
Lonesome on earth's loneliest deep,?Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep--?Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep?Over monstrous waves that curl and comb;?Of thee we think when here from brink?We blow the mead in bubbling foam.
Of thee we think, in a ring we link;?To the shearer of ocean's fleece we drink,?And the Meteor rolling home.
FAR OFF-SHORE
Look, the raft, a signal flying,?Thin--a shred;?None upon the lashed spars lying,?Quick or dead.
Cries the sea-fowl, hovering over,?"Crew, the crew?"?And the billow, reckless, rover,?Sweeps anew!
THE MAN-OF-WAR HAWK
Yon black man-of-war-hawk that wheels in
the light?O'er the black ship's white sky-s'l, sunned
cloud to the sight,?Have we low-flyers wings to ascend to his
height??No arrow can reach him; nor thought can
attain?To the placid supreme in the sweep of his
reign.
THE FIGURE-HEAD
The Charles-and-Emma seaward sped,?(Named from the carven pair at prow,)?He so smart, and a curly head,?She tricked forth as a bride knows how:?Pretty stem for the port, I trow!
But iron-rust and alum-spray?And chafing gear, and sun and dew?Vexed this lad and lassie gay,?Tears in their eyes, salt tears nor few;?And the hug relaxed with the failing glue.
But came in end a dismal night,?With creaking beams and ribs that groan,?A black lee-shore and waters white:?Dropped on the reef, the pair lie prone:?O, the breakers dance, but the winds they?moan!
THE GOOD CRAFT SNOW BIRD
Strenuous need that head-wind be?From purposed voyage that drives at last?The ship, sharp-braced and dogged still,?Beating up against the blast.
Brigs that figs for market gather,?Homeward-bound upon the stretch,?Encounter oft this uglier weather?Yet in end their port they fetch.
Mark yon craft from sunny Smyrna?Glazed with ice in Boston Bay;?Out they toss the fig-drums cheerly,?Livelier for the frosty ray.
What if sleet off-shore assailed her,?What though ice yet plate her yards;?In wintry port not less she renders?Summer's gift with warm regards!
And, look, the underwriters' man,?Timely, when the stevedore's done,?Puts on his specs to pry and scan,?And sets her down--A, No. 1.
Bravo, master! Bravo, brig!?For slanting snows out of the West?Never the Snow-Bird cares one fig;?And foul winds steady her, though a pest.
OLD COUNSEL?Of The Young Master of a Wrecked California Clipper
Come out of the Golden Gate,?Go round the Horn with streamers,?Carry royals early and late;?But, brother, be not over-elate--?All hands save ship! has startled dreamers.
THE TUFT OF KELP
All dripping in tangles green,?Cast up by a lonely sea?If purer for that, O Weed,?Bitterer, too, are ye?
THE MALDIVE SHARK
About the Shark, phlegmatical one,?Pale sot of the Maldive sea,?The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,?How alert in attendance be.?From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel
of maw?They have nothing of harm to dread,?But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank?Or before his Gorgonian head:?Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth?In white triple tiers of glittering gates,?And there find a haven when peril's abroad,?An asylum in jaws of the Fates!?They are friends; and friendly they guide him
to prey,?Yet never partake of the treat--?Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and
dull,?Pale ravener of horrible meat.
TO NED
Where is the world we roved, Ned Bunn??Hollows thereof lay rich in shade?By voyagers old inviolate thrown?Ere Paul Pry cruised with Pelf and Trade.?To us old lads some thoughts come home?Who roamed a world young lads no more shall
roam.
Nor less the satiate year impends?When, wearying of routine-resorts,?The pleasure-hunter shall break loose,?Ned, for our Pantheistic ports:--?Marquesas and glenned isles that be?Authentic Edens in a Pagan sea.
The charm of scenes untried shall lure,?And, Ned, a legend urge the flight--?The Typee-truants under stars?Unknown to Shakespere's _MidsummerNight;
_?And man, if lost to Saturn's Age,?Yet feeling life no Syrian pilgrimage.
But, tell, shall he, the tourist, find?Our isles the same in violet-glow?Enamoring us what years and years--?Ah, Ned, what years and years ago!?Well, Adam advances, smart in pace,?But scarce by violets that advance you trace.
But we, in anchor-watches calm,?The Indian Psyche's languor won,?And, musing, breathed primeval balm?From Edens ere yet overrun;?Marvelling mild if mortal twice,?Here and hereafter, touch a Paradise.
CROSSING THE TROPICS?From "The Saya-y-Manto."
While now the Pole Star sinks from sight?The Southern Cross it climbs the sky;?But losing thee, my love, my light,?O bride