Songs of Sea and Sail

THE SAILOR OF THE SAIL.

I sing the Sailor of the Sail, breed of the oaken heart,
Who drew the world together and spread our race apart,
Whose conquests are the measure of thrice the ocean's girth,
Whose trophies are the nations that necklace half the earth.
Lord of the Bunt and Gasket and Master of the Yard,
To whom no land was distant, to whom no sea was barred:
Who battled with the current; who conquered with the wind;

Who shaped the course before him by the wake he threw behind;
Who burned in twenty climates; who froze in twenty seas;
Who crept the shore of Labrador and flash'd the Caribbees.
Who followed Drake; who fought with Blake; who broke the bar of Spain,
And who gave to timid traffic the freedom of the main.
Who woke the East; who won the West; who made the North his own;
Who weft his wake in many a fake athwart the Southern zone;
Who drew the thread of commerce through Sunda's rocky strait;
Who faced the fierce Levanter where England holds the gate;
Who saw the frozen mountains draw down the moonlike sun;

Who felt the gale tear at the sail, and ice gnaw at the run;
Who drove the lance of barter through Asia's ancient shield;
Who tore from drowsy China what China dare not yield;
Who searched with Cook and saw him unroll beneath his hand
The last, the strangest continent, the sundered Southern land;
To whom all things were barter—slaves, spices, gold, and gum;
Who gave his life for glory; who sold his soul for rum—
I sing him, and I see him, as only those can see
Who stake their lives to fathom that solveless mystery;
Who on the space of waters have fought the killing gale,

Have heard the crying of the spar, the moaning of the sail;
Who never see the ocean but that they feel its hand
Clutch like a siren at the heart to drag it from the land;
I see him in the running when seas would overwhelm
Lay breathing hard along the yard and sweating at the helm.
I see him at the earing light out the stubborn bands
When every foot of canvas is screeved with bloody hands.
I see him freezing, starving—I see him scurvy curst,
Alone, and slowly dying, locked in that hell of thirst.
I see him drunk and fighting roll through some seaboard town,

When those who own and rob him take to the street and frown.
O Sovereign of the Boundless! O Bondsman of the Wave!
Who made the world dependent, yet lived and died a slave.
In Britain's vast Valhalla, where sleep her worst and best—
Where is the grave she made you—your first and final rest—
Beneath no stone or trophy, beneath no minster tower,
Lie those who gave her Empire, who stretched her arm to power.
Below those markless pathways where commerce shapes the trail,

Unsung, unrung, forgotten, sleeps The Sailor of The Sail.

THE YACHT.

How like a queen she walks the summer sea;
Her canvas crowning well the comely mold
Light loved until it lifts a spire of gold
Outlined and inset by a tracery
Of rig and spar. Hers is a witchery
Of loveliness, that seems to draw and hold
The wind to do its bidding. Fold on fold
The seas charge in; then stricken by the free
Quick lancing of her stem recoil to break
Against the breeze; then rushing back they foam
Along the rail, and swirl into the wake,
And rave astern in many a wrinkled dome.
For thus she doth her windward way betake

Like one who lives to conquer and to roam.

THE TRADE-WIND'S SONG.

Oh, I am the wind that the seamen love—
I am steady, and strong, and true;
They follow my track by the clouds above
O'er the fathomless tropic blue.
For close by the shores of the sunny Azores
Their ships I await to convoy;
When into their sails my constant breath pours
They hail me with turbulent joy.
Oh, I bring them a rest from the tiresome toil
Of trimming the sail to the blast;
For I love to keep gear all snug in the coil
And the sheets and the braces all fast.
From the deck to the truck I pour all my force,
In spanker and jib I am strong;
For I make every course to pull like a horse

And worry the great ship along.
As I fly o'er the blue I sing to the crew,
Who answer me back with a hail;
I whistle a note as I slip by the throat
Of the buoyant and bellying sail.
I laugh when the wave leaps over the head
And the jibs thro' the spray-bow shine,
For an acre of foam is broken and spread
When she shoulders and tosses the brine.
Thro' daylight and dark I follow the bark,
I keep like a hound on her trail;
I'm strongest at noon, yet under the moon
I stiffen the bunt of her sail;
The wide ocean thro' for days I pursue,
Till slowly my forces all wane;
Then in whispers of calm I bid them adieu
And vanish in thunder and rain.
Oh, I am the wind that the seamen love—
I am steady, and strong, and true;
They follow my track by the clouds above

O'er the fathomless tropic blue.

EXECUTION ROCK LIGHT.

Out on its knoll of granite gray,
Old Execution rears its ghostly shaft,
And thro' the night and thro' the day
Speaks cheer to passing craft;
While in the sun they see it gleam
Upon the horizon, miles afar,
And in the dark its changeful beam
Flames out a guiding star.
From year to year, thro' calm and gale,
Across the Sound its warning flare is cast
It cries "All's well!" to steam and sail
And guides them safely past.
One day it hides its form in haze
And seems to sentinel some mystic strand;
The next, it glories in the blaze

Of morning's crimson brand.
And now across the stormy tide
It spires against the sandy bluff, and shows
The front of one who will abide
The shock of lusty blows.
Along its reef the surges roll,
And white with repulse rise and fling their froth
Like snow across the rocky knoll,
Then burst in foamy wrath.
And there it stands, fearless, sedate,
Like some brave knight who scorns to couch his lance
Against the churls, but with his weight

Bears back their wild advance.

THE CARGO BOATS.

I love to see them, laden deep,
Come steaming in from ports afar,
And, slipping past the light-ship, creep
With watchful steps across the bar,
Mauled by the hands of tide and time,
All grimy with their grimy coals,
Their funnels white with salty rime,
And smoky rings about their poles.
Look, now, along the Gedney lane,
With pushing bows comes slowly through
A West of England cargo wain,
With banded stack and star of blue.
There is no beauty in her form;
But when has simple beauty paid
In vessel destined to perform

As Cinderella to the trade?
Go, let her haughty sisters flaunt
Their sightly stems and graceful sheers;
But let her best, her only vaunt,
Be that she is as she appears—
A thing that men have framed to bear
Their merchandise at cheapest rates,
That's safe to pay a pound a share,
And more when there's a boom in freights;
A monster whelped of monster age—
An age that thinks but cannot feel—
Whose Bible is the balanced page,
Whose gods are gods of steam and steel.
In her I love the useful thing—
In her I hate the sailless mast;
For I am one who cares to sing
The glories of the steamless past.
I feel the spirit of the age—
The master splendor of its span—
But make no common with the rage

That lifts the thing above the man.
But useless this—we've learned to make
The word mechanic fit a song;
So let us watch that ship and take
Her picture as she jogs along.
The house-flag hoist; the ensign spread;
The tackles rove; the booms atop;
The deck-gang busy on the head;
The anchor ready for the drop.
Though from this outlook men appear
No bigger than a dancing midge,
I see the pilot standing near
The skipper on the upper bridge.
The telegraph is set "stand by";
The oldest hand is at the wheel;
And down below with watchful eye
The Chief awaits the warning peal.
The engines hiss; the 'scape-pipe roars;
The firemen spread the dusty slack,
And sternward from her funnel pours

A cloud that lingers in her track.
The Hook is past, the buoy abeam;
Then slowly to her helm she turns,
And getting confidence and steam
At full speed up the bay she churns.
Her lean hull shrinks, her spars grow short,
Her trailing flag is scarcely seen,
As slipping past the granite fort
She drops her hook off Quarantine.
And we who watch her turn away
And talk of ships and other things,
The present and the future day,
And what the world will do with wings.
How men will stir with busy hum
The upper main, by wake untraced,
And how the ocean will become

Again a sailless, shipless waste.

THE NOONTIDE CALM.

I.

The azure sky leans on the sea,
Inverting its concavity,
And in the waveless depths below
Re-forms and rolls its cloudy show;
For cloud and cloud are piled to shape
A mountain here, and there a cape,
Until the heavens seem to rest
A cheek upon the ocean's breast,
And listen, with white lips apart,
To catch the beating of its heart.
Fathoms deep, oh, fathoms deep,
Maid and merman lie asleep;
Calm above and calm below;
Sheering to the current's flow,
Vessels red and vessels brown,
Floating, cast a shadow down

On the seafolks' coral town.

II.

Slowly the shadows crawl
Along the wall
Of the sea-king's hall.
The sea-grass curtains thro'
He looks out upon the blue
Glimmering regions that bow down
To the magic of his crown.
Lord of half an ocean, he
Loves to live where rivers three,
Flowing from the windy hills,
Drinkers of a thousand rills,
Pour into the thirsty sea.
There he delights to lie,
Mirroring the lucent sky
In his wild and wondrous eye.
Far, far o'erhead he marks
The swordfish and the sharks
Darting up and floating down;
Sees the porpoise, blue and brown,
Plunge thro' the silver nebula

Of fish;—the herring in dismay
Break, scatter like a starry host
Whose path some errant sun has cross'd.
And he smiles to watch the race
When the merry dolphins chase
A dogfish from his flying prey;
Where the clumsy sea-cows stray,
Herded by the mermen strong,
Who, with lances light and long,
Keep the gaunt sea-wolves at bay.

III.

Shades of vessels that have passed
Rope and sail and yellow mast—
On the seafolks' town are cast;
And the Merking, startled by
Shadows in his crystal sky,
Calls the guard at palace gate,
Where he reigns in ancient state,
Sitting on a coral throne,
With sea-mosses overgrown—
Calls his guard to send a slave

Skyward, soaring thro' the wave,
To command the mariner
To move on. The messenger,
A dolphin bold,
With back of gold,
Swiftly cleaving, swirling, leaving
A flashing trail,
As from each scale
And finny tip
A silver spray of bubbles slip.
Higher, higher rises he,
Till from the surface of the sea
He leaps, and gloriously
Rolls his flashing coat of mail
In the splendor of the day.
Then the sailors trim the sail,
Knowing that the sprightly gale
Cometh when the dolphins play.
Haste away! Haste away!
For the breeze
Frets the seas,
And the rim of opal hue

Burns a green and flames a blue.

THE OLD BUCCANEER'S SONG.

Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
And I feel the breezes blowing and see those isles again—
Those isles of peace and plenty where we loved to linger long,
To woo the black-eyed Carib maid who sang the rover's song;
Who, resting in the palm shade when the sun was fierce above,
With many a tender measure taught us what indeed is love.
Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,

And I hear my comrades calling me back to them again;
For 'tis where the breakers, roaring, flash in and beat the sand—
'Tis where the feathery plantain shakes its shadow on the strand;
'Neath orange and palmetto and many a flowery tree
Dwell the gallant privateersmen who drink and think of me.
Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main—
I see our banners flying and I hear the cheers again:
When with many a reckless comrade in vessel tall and true,
Before the constant trade-wind to the south-and-west we flew,
And ere the haughty Spaniard had thought of danger near

Town and tower and galleon were spoil of buccaneer.
Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
And many a pearl and red doubloon chink in my hand again.
Back, back unto the sunny isle to rest a season there—
To bind a lace of priceless gems in my sweet Carib's hair,
To feel her arms about my neck, to hear her sing again
The pleasures and the glories of our life along the main.
Oh, my heart goes privateering along the Spanish Main,
For I am weary waiting for those days to come again.
A curse upon this slothful life and this black northern land!

Oh, give to me the sapphire sea and southern strand!
Oh, let me hear but once again my comrades' ringing cheers,

And lead to spoil and victory the dashing buccaneers.

THE BELFRY OF THE SEA.

Men who bless them
And caress them—
Bells that call upon the land—
Curse and chide them,
Mock, deride them,
When they shout above a sand.
Not alone are bells thus treated,
For the story is repeated
In the world of every day;
He who flings us—
He who brings us—
Joys and pleasures all may share,
Has our blessings for his pay;
But he who warns us—
He who mourns us,
Bids us to the watch and ware—
Has our curses,
And reverses
In the moulds that mint our prayer.

O singer of the sailor's song,
Fear not to sing me broad and strong—
Fear not to sing me in the van
Of those who stand and strive for man;
And if they make the question, then
Come tell me what man does for men.
I am the Belfry of the Sea,
The rider of the swell,
The guardsman of the deadly lee,
The outer sentinel.
Man placed me here to watch this sand—
This sneaking, shifting shoal—
He shaped me with a clever hand,
So that my bell doth toll
With every move and motion
Of the changeful, changeless ocean.
Mine is a thankless task;
But no recompense I ask.
I am hated by the shoal;

I am hated by the sea;
And the very fish that bask
In the shadow of my cask
Are half afraid of me.
The land wind speaks me fair,
For it has no thought or care
With the deeds that are done
In the midnight and the gale;
And it bears me on its wing
A welcome offering
Of the shouting of the upland
And the chatter of the shale.
But most I love the weather
When the wind and sea together
Lie locked in summer slumber
And the sky sleeps overhead,
For then I ease the strain
On my anchor and my chain,
And ring a muffled service
For my shattered, scattered dead.
I am never wholly sad;

I am never wholly glad;
For my sadness is half madness
And my gladness is half sadness
For the remnants of the wrecks
That lie below me cast
A gloom upon the wave,
And my sunny days are past
Sleeping in the shadow
That is shaken from a grave.
'Twas not I who betrayed them;
'Twas not I who waylaid them;
But they died with curses for me
On their water-wasted lips.
I did my best to save them
The warning that I gave them
Is the warning that has succored
Ten thousand watchful ships.
Ah, had they used the lead!
Ah, had they tacked instead
Of standing blindly onward

Without a watch for me!
They would have heard me tolling;
They would have seen me rolling;
And have had a chance to weather
And gain the open sea.
For I mark a dreaded danger
To the coaster and the stranger,
For my friend below is silent
And shows no foamy chain.
Not like the sunken ledge;
Not like the reefs that wedge
The surges from the undergrip
And hurl them out again.
For the reef it warns the ship
By the frothing and the snowing
Of its rocky underlip;
For it shows its broken teeth,
And it bares the bone beneath,
And roars sometimes in anger,

And it cries sometimes in grief.
But this sluggish and this sucking spread of sand
It is dead to ear and eye;
And its very bounds defy
The laws that keep in order
The stout and stable land.
It changes every storm;
And I never know its form—
I who gird and guard it
With my constant clanging bell—
It scarcely gives me hold
For my anchor in its mold;
And we shift and change together
With each mighty, moving swell.
But I rob it of its prey,
For the ships have time to stay,
When the wind takes up my music
And bears it out to sea;
But when the Easters roar

And drive upon the shore
My loudest cry of warning
Is tossed and lost a-lee.
Then, then I cry in anger,
And the clanging and the clangor
Shake and shock the bars
Of my tossing, toiling cage;
And I curse the wind and sea,
And the chain that's under me
Strains its links and surges
With the transports of my rage.
For I know I cannot save them;
And the shoal that thinks to grave them—
That will feed its thousand acres
On their oaken frames and sides—
It seems to mound its spread,
It seems to lift its head,
As though to make more deadly
The tangle of its tides.
In the snow, in the fog,

When the sharpest eyes are blind;
When the ocean
Has scarce motion,
And the wind
Has forsaken;
When my power of speech is taken,
And I sit in silent pain;
When I toil and toil in vain
To force the larum note
From the muscles of my throat,
And it only breathes a toll
That dies upon the shoal;
And I strive and I writhe
With the pain of action palsied
By a force beyond control.
When I cannot see or hear them;
When I cannot warn or cheer them;
And only know that they are there
By the throbbing of my soul.
For I know that they will blame me;
For I know that they will name me
With the bitterest of curses

For the silence of my note,
And I stoop and pray the sea
To lend its aid to me;
But it mocks me with a ripple
That scarcely wets my float.
And then I hear them calling,
As slowly, slowly crawling
They come working in from seaward
With their whistles crying where?
And I try to answer back
That I'm lying in the track;
But the loudest cry I make them
Is a thread upon the air.

Swing—swing—
Ring—ring—
Roll—roll—
Toll—toll—
Just a thing
Without a soul,
Doing its duty on the shoal;
Just a bell
That sea and swell
In their fury, in their play,
Set a throbbing,
And a sobbing;
By their very madness robbing—
By their rage and rush defeating,
By their hate and hurry cheating—
Ocean of its prey.
Swing—swing—
Ring—ring—
Roll—roll—
Toll—toll.