John Marr and Other Poems | Page 6

for the
Deadman,
But hope with the grand fleet to see you
again.
I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail
aback, boys;
I have hove my ship to, for the strike
soundings clear--

The black scud a'flying; but, by God's blessing,
dam' me,
Right up the Channel for the Deadman I'll
steer.
I have worried through the waters that are
called the Doldrums,
And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye

grope--
Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the
mist, lads:--
Flying Dutchman--odds bobbs--off the
Cape of Good
Hope!
But what's this I feel that is fanning my cheek,
Matt?
The white goney's wing?--how she rolls!--
't is the Cape!--

Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is
mine, none;
And tell Holy Joe to avast with the crape.

Dead reckoning, says Joe, it won't do to go by;
But they doused all
the glims, Matt, in sky
t' other night.
Dead reckoning is good for to
sail for the
Deadman;
And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon
near right.
The signal!--it streams for the grand fleet to
anchor.
The captains--the trumpets--the hullabaloo!
Stand by for
blue-blazes, and mind your
shank-painters,
For the Lord High Admiral, he's squinting
at you!
But give me my tot, Matt, before I roll over;
Jock, let's have your
flipper, it's good for to
feel;
And don't sew me up without baccy in
mouth,
boys,
And don't blubber like lubbers when I turn
up my keel.
JACK ROY
Kept up by 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