Ride to the Lady | Page 6

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 was like the shock of Doomsday,--not a tar but
shuddered hard. All was hushed for one strange moment; then that
awful calm was broken By the heavy plash that answered the descent of
mast and yard.
So, her cannon still defying, and her colors flaming, flying, In her pit
her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead, Soared the Orient
into darkness with her living and her dying: "Yet our lads made shift to
rescue three-score souls," the seaman said.
Long the boy with knit brows wondered o'er that friending
of the foeman;
Long the man with shut lips pondered; powerless he to

tell the cause Why the brother in his bosom that desired the death of no
man, In the crash of battle wakened, snapped the bonds of hate like
straws.
While he mused, his toddling maiden drew the daisies to a posy; Mild
the bells of Sunday morning rang across the church-yard sod; And,
helped on by tender hands, with sturdy feet all bare and rosy, Climbed
his babe to mother's breast, as climbs the slow world
up to God.
A RESURRECTION
Neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
I was quick in the flesh, was warm, and the live heart shook my breast;
In the market I bought and sold, in the temple I bowed my head. I had
swathed me in shows and forms, and was honored above the rest For
the sake of the life I lived; nor did any esteem me dead.
But at last, when the hour was ripe--was it sudden-remembered word?
Was it sight of a bird that mounted, or sound of a strain that
stole?
I was 'ware of a spell that snapped, of an inward strength that
stirred,
Of a Presence that filled that place; and it shone, and I knew
my Soul.
And the dream I had called my life was a garment about my feet, For
the web of the years was rent with the throe of a
yearning strong.
With a sweep as of winds in heaven, with a rush as
of flames that meet, The Flesh and the Spirit clasped; and I cried, "Was
I dead so long?"
I had glimpse of the Secret, flashed through the symbol obscure

and mean,
And I felt as a fire what erst I repeated with lips of clay;
And I knew for the things eternal the things eye hath not seen; Yea, the
heavens and the earth shall pass; but they never
shall pass away.
And the miracle on me wrought, in the streets I would straight
make known:
"When this marvel of mine is heard, without cavil shall
men receive Any legend of haloed saint, staring up through the sealèd
stone!" So I spake in the trodden ways; but behold, there would none
believe!
THE GLORIOUS COMPANY
"Faces, faces, faces of the streaming marching surge,
Streaming on
the weary road, toward the awful steep,
Whence your glow and glory,
as ye set to that sharp verge,
Faces lit as sunlit stars, shining as ye
sweep?
"Whence this wondrous radiance that ye somehow catch and cast,
Faces rapt, that one discerns 'mid the dusky press
Herding in dull
wonder, gathering fearful to the Vast?
Surely all is dark before, night
of nothingness!"
Lo, the Light! (they answer) _O the pure,
the pulsing Light,
Beating like a heart of life, like a heart of love,

Soaring, searching, filling all the breadth and depth and height, Welling,
whelming with its peace worlds below, above!_
"O my soul, how art thou to that living Splendor blind,
Sick with thy
desire to see even as these men see!--
Yet to look upon them is to
know that God hath shined:
Faces lit as sunlit stars, be all my