Ride to the Lady | Page 5

petronel. He to left of me drew down his grim grizzled lip with his teeth,-- I remember his look; so we grew like dumb trees on the heath.
But the people,--the people were mad as with store of new wine; Oh, they cheered him, they capped him, they roared as he rode
down the line:?He that fled us at Worcester, the boy, the green brier-shoot, the son Of the Stuart on whom for his sin the great judgment was done!
Swam before us the field of our shame, and our souls walked afar; Saw the glory, the blaze of the sun bursting over Dunbar;?Saw the faces of friends, in the morn riding jocund to fight; Saw the stern pallid faces again, as we saw them at night!
"O ye blessed, who died in the Lord! would to God that we too Had so passed, only sad that we ceased his high justice to do, With the words of the psalm on our lips that from Israel's once came, How the Lord is a strong man of war; yea, the Lord is his name!
"Not for us, not for us! who have served for his kingdom seven years, Yea, and yet other seven have we served, sweating blood, bleeding tears,?For the kingdom of God and the saints! Rachel's beauty made bold, Yet we bear but a Leah at last to a hearth that is cold!"
Burned the fire while I mused, while I gloomed; in the end came a call; Settled o'er me a calm like a cloud, spake a voice still and small: "Take thou Leah to bride, take thou Failure to bed and to board! Thou shalt rear up new strengths at her knees; she is given
of the Lord!
"If with weight of his right hand, with power, he denieth to deal, And the smoke clouds, and thunders of guns, and the lightnings
of steel,?Shall the cool silent dews of his grace, in a season of peace, Not descend on the land, as of old, for a sign, on the fleece?
"Hath he cleft not the rock, to the yield of a stream that is sweet? Hath he set in the ribs of the lion no honey for meat??Can he bring not delight to the desert, and buds to the rod? He will shine, he will visit his vine; he hath sworn, he is God!"
Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's
long dead,--?I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead;?Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife, And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!
THE STORY OF THE "ORIENT"
'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory, English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door, Florid-faced, the man-o'-war's-man told his white-head boy the story, Noble story of Aboukir, told a hundred times before.
"Here, the Theseus_--here, the _Vanguard;" as he spoke
each name sonorous,--?Minotaur, Defence, Majestic, stanch old comrades of the brine, That against the ships of Brucys made their broadsides roar
in chorus,--?Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line.
Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might
a man left-handed,?Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar.?While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded, Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutlass-scar.
For he served aboard the Vanguard, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed. Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding, Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered,
flashed, and screamed.
Till a cry swelled loud and louder,--towered on fire the
Orient stately,?Brucys' flag-ship, she that carried guns a hundred and a score; Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately, Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more.
"'Lower the boats!' was Nelson's order."--
But the listening boy beside him,?Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye, Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him, Here, with childhood's crude consistence, broke the tale
to question "Why?"
For by children facts go streaming in a throng that never pauses, Noted not, till, of a sudden, thought, a sunbeam, gilds the motes, All at once the known words quicken, and the child would deal
with causes.?Since to kill the French was righteous, why bade Nelson lower
the boats?
Quick the man put by the question. "But the Orient, none
could save her;?We could see the ships, the ensigns, clear as daylight by the flare; And a many leaped and left her; but, God rest 'em! some were braver; Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to God knows where."
At the shock, he said, the Vanguard shook through all
her timbers oaken;?It