55eSTORYs^«ROUND HOUSE 
 
 A JOHN MASEFIELD ^ 
 
Class V \-. 6 a ^ 
 Rook ,All 37 
 Gopyii^iit N° , 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. ' 
 
THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
•Tl 
 
 ^^yi^' 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE STORY OF 
 
 A ROUND-HOUSE AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN MASEFIELD "" 
 
 author of "the everlasting mercy " 
 "the widow in the bye street," etc. 
 
 "Etta fork 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 »Py ^ 
 
./A 77 57 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 1912, 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1912. 
 
 NorbjDotJ Prtaa 
 
 J. S. Gushing- Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Dauber . 
 Biography . 
 
 Ships 
 
 Truth . 
 
 They closed her Eyes 
 
 The Harp 
 
 I saw the Ramparts 
 
 That Blessed Sunlight 
 
 Song 
 
 The Ballad of Sir Bors 
 
 Spanish Waters 
 
 Cargoes . 
 
 Captain Stratton's Fancy 
 
 An Old Song re-sung 
 
 St. Mary's Bells 
 
 London Town 
 
 The Emigrant 
 
 Port of Holy Peter 
 
 Beauty . 
 
 The Seekers . 
 
 Prayer 
 
 Dawn 
 
 Laugh and be Merry 
 
 June Twilight 
 
 Roadways 
 
 Midsummer Night 
 
 The Harper's Song 
 
 The Gentle Lady 
 
 The Dead Knight 
 
 1 
 
 187 
 
 210 
 219 
 221 
 227 
 228 
 230 
 232 
 234 
 237 
 242 
 244 
 247 
 249 
 251 
 254 
 256 
 259 
 260 
 263 
 265 
 266 
 268 
 270 
 272 
 274 
 276 
 277 
 
VI CONTENTS 
 
 TASK 
 
 Sorrow of Mydath 279 
 
 Twilight 281 
 
 Invocation ........ 282 
 
 Posted as Missing 283 
 
 A Creed 285 
 
 When Bony Death 288 
 
 The West Wind 290 
 
 Her Heart 293 
 
 Being her Friend 295 
 
 Fragments 296 
 
 Born for Nought Else 300 
 
 Tewkesbury Road 802 
 
 The Death Rooms 304 
 
 Ignorance 306 
 
 Sea Fever 308 
 
 The Watch in the Wood 310 
 
 C. L. M 313 
 
 Waste 315 
 
 Third Mate 317 
 
 The Wild Duck 320 
 
 Christmas, 1903 322 
 
 The Word 324 
 
THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
DAUBER 
 
 I 
 
 Four bells were struck, the watch was called 
 
 on deck, 
 All work aboard was over for the hour, 
 And some men sang and others played at 
 
 check, 
 Or mended clothes or watched the sunset 
 
 glower, 
 The bursting west was like an opening 
 
 flower 
 And one man watched it till the light was 
 
 dim, 
 But no one went across to talk to him. 
 
 He was the Painter in that swift ship's crew, 
 Lampman and painter, tall, a slight-built 
 man, 
 
 B 
 
 1 
 
2 DA UBEB 
 
 Young for his years and not yet twenty- 
 two, 
 
 Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan. 
 
 BulHed and damned at since the voyage 
 began, 
 
 "Being neither man nor seaman, by his 
 tally," 
 
 He bunked with the idlers just abaft the 
 galley. 
 
 His work began at five ; he worked all day, 
 
 Keeping no watch and having all night in, 
 
 His work was what the mate might care to 
 say. 
 
 He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin; 
 
 His dungarees were smeared with paraffin; 
 
 '' Go drown himself," his roundhouse mates 
 advised him 
 
 And all hands called him Dauber and de- 
 spised him. 
 
DAUBER 3 
 
 Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar, 
 Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side, 
 Slushing his hands to get away the tar, 
 And then he washed himself and rinsed and 
 
 dried. 
 Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager-eyed. 
 He crossed the spar to Dauber and there 
 
 stood 
 Watching the gold of heaven turn to blood. 
 They stood there by the rail while the swift 
 
 ship 
 Tore on out of the tropics, straining her 
 
 sheets, 
 Whitening her trackway to a milky strip 
 Dim with green bubbles and twisted water- 
 meets. 
 Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and 
 
 cleats, 
 Her great sails bellied hard and her masts 
 
 leaned ; 
 
4 BA UBER 
 
 They watched how the seas struck and burst 
 and greened. 
 
 Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side. 
 ''Why did you come to sea, Painter?" he 
 
 said, 
 "I want to be a painter," he repHed, 
 "And know the sea and ships from A to Z, 
 And paint great ships at sea before I'm 
 
 dead. 
 Ships under skysails running down the 
 
 Trade, 
 Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer 
 
 made. 
 
 "But there's so much to learn, with sails 
 
 and ropes, 
 And how the sails look, full or being 
 
 furled. 
 And how the lights change in the troughs 
 
 and slopes. 
 
DAUBER 5 
 
 And the sea's colours up and down the 
 
 world, 
 And how a storm looks when the sprays are 
 
 hurled 
 High as the yard (they say) I want to see, 
 There's none ashore can teach such things 
 
 to me. 
 
 "And then the men and rigging, and the way 
 Ships move, running or beating, and the poise 
 At the roll's end, the checking in the sway, 
 I want to paint them perfect, short of the 
 
 noise. 
 And then the life, the half -decks full of boys, 
 The fo'c's'les with the men there, dripping 
 
 wet: 
 I know the subjects that I want to get. 
 
 ''It's not been done, the sea, not yet been 
 
 done, 
 From the inside, by one who really knows, 
 
6 DAUBER 
 
 I'd give up all if I could be the one, 
 But art comes dear the way the money 
 
 goes. 
 So I have come to sea, and I suppose 
 Three years will teach me all I want to learn 
 And make enough to keep me till I earn." 
 
 Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved 
 Drawing the leap of water off the side 
 Where the great clipper trampled iron- 
 
 hooved 
 Making the blue hills of the sea divide, 
 Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride, 
 And leaping on full tilt with all sails draw- 
 ing 
 Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, paw- 
 ing. 
 
 "1 cannot get it yet, not yet," he said, 
 ''That leap and light and sudden change to 
 green. 
 
DA UBER 7 
 
 And all the glittering from the sunset's red, 
 And the milky colours where the bursts 
 
 have been, 
 And the great clipper striding like a queen 
 Over it all, all beauty to the crown, 
 I see it all, I cannot put it down. 
 
 " It's hard, not to be able. There, look 
 
 there, 
 I cannot get the movement nor the light : 
 Sometimes it almost makes a man despair 
 To try and try and never get it right. 
 O, if I could, 0, if I only might, 
 I wouldn't mind what hells I'd have to 
 
 pass, 
 Not if the whole world called me fool and 
 
 ass." 
 
 Down sank the crimson sun into the sea 
 The wind cut chill at once, the west grew 
 dun. 
 
8 DAUBER 
 
 ''Out sidelights," called the mate; ''Hi, 
 
 where is he?" 
 The boatswain called, "Out sidelights, damn 
 
 you; run." 
 "He's always late or lazing," murmured 
 
 one, 
 "The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon 
 
 the tints 
 Of red and green passed on dark water- 
 glints. 
 Darker it grew, still darker, and the 
 
 stars 
 Burned golden, and the fiery fishes came. 
 The wire-note loudened from the straining 
 
 spars. 
 The sheet-blocks clacked together always 
 
 the same, 
 The rushing fishes streaked the seas with 
 
 flame, 
 Racing the one speed noble as their own, 
 
DAUBER 9 
 
 What unknown joy was in those fish un- 
 known. 
 
 Just by the roundhouse door as it grew dark 
 
 The boatswain caught the Dauber with 
 ''Now, you. 
 
 Till now I've spared you, damn you, now 
 you hark, 
 
 I've just had hell for what you didn't do. 
 
 I'll have you broke and sent among the 
 crew 
 
 If you get me more trouble by a particle. 
 
 Don't you forget, you daubing, useless ar- 
 ticle. 
 
 "You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port 
 
 Mahon." 
 Then came the cook's ''Is that the Dauber 
 
 there ? 
 Why don't you leave them stinking paints 
 
 alone ? 
 
10 DAUBER 
 
 They stink the house out, poisoning all the 
 
 air, 
 Just take them out." ''Where to?" ''I 
 
 don't care where. 
 I won't have stinking paints here." From 
 
 their plates, 
 ''That's right; wet paint breeds fever," 
 
 growled his mates. 
 
 He took his still wet drawings from the 
 
 berth 
 And climbed the ladder to the deck-house 
 
 top, 
 Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with 
 
 mirth 
 For two ship's boys were putting on the 
 
 strop. 
 One, clambering up to let the skylight drop, 
 Saw him and scuttled down and whispered 
 
 "Sammy, 
 
DAUBER 11 
 
 Here's Dauber mooning on the deck-house, 
 dammy." 
 
 ^' Watch what he does:" they watched; 
 
 five pairs of eyes, 
 Stared through the sHt to see what Dauber 
 
 did. 
 They saw him watch the rising moon with 
 
 sighs, 
 Then bend to the ship's long boat on the skid 
 And lay beneath her something which he 
 
 hid. 
 ''Myst'ry in high life," whispered one to 
 
 t'other, 
 ''The Foundling Babe, or Who was Peter's 
 
 Mother?" 
 
 He stayed a moment, leaning on the boat. 
 Watching the constellations rise and burn. 
 Until the beauty took him by the throat 
 So stately is their glittering overturn; 
 
12 DAUBER 
 
 Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn 
 With banners rising and faUing and passing 
 
 by 
 
 Over the empty silence of the sky. 
 
 He sighed again and looked at the great 
 
 sails 
 To get a memory of their look at night, 
 The high trucks traced on heaven and left 
 
 no trails, 
 The moonlight made the topsails almost 
 
 white, 
 The passing sidelight seemed to drip green 
 
 light 
 And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright 
 
 bows. 
 He sighed "V\\ never do't," and left the 
 
 house. 
 
 ''Now, Sammy," said the reefers. Up they 
 crept, 
 
DAUBER 13 
 
 Treading on tiptoe, on the Dauber's track. 
 They groped below the boat, their right 
 
 hands swept 
 From chock to skid and came rewarded 
 
 back. 
 "Drawings, Lord love us, sketches, more, a 
 
 stack. 
 Hush, or they'll hear us. Hush. You little 
 
 fishes. 
 There's boatswain making Dauber wash the 
 
 dishes." 
 
 They took the drawings to the half-deck. 
 There 
 
 Under the swinging lamp they looked and 
 mocked. 
 
 ^^^ A boat at night with trawl down, burning 
 a flare' 
 
 Lord's me; 'An Ocean Charger' . . . sickle- 
 hocked. 
 
14 DAUBER 
 
 'At sea.' I'd do a better three parts 
 
 cocked. 
 'A topsail,' without bunthnes, Dauber's 
 
 style ; 
 Put end to end they almost reach a mile !" 
 
 The oldest reefer lit his pipe and spat, 
 "We'll have some fun with these," he said. 
 
 ''Now, Joe, 
 A job for you, and see you do it pat. 
 Pick up that empty tin, my son, and go 
 Aft to the lamp-room." 
 
 ''Mate's there." 
 
 "Even so. 
 Do what you're told, lay aft and fill that tin 
 With turps and bring it back, or mind your 
 
 skin." 
 
 *'But Sam, the mate's there." "Jao, you 
 Kitmutgar ; 
 
DA UBER 15 
 
 Jao; pasea." He went, he filled the can, 
 Dodging the mate, and ''Here," he said, 
 
 ''you are; 
 This is the turps ; now Sammy, what's the 
 
 plan?" 
 "Rouse out a mess-clout now, my little 
 
 man. 
 And wash these daubs with turps until 
 
 they're gone. 
 And then we'll put them back. Heave 
 
 round. Lay on." 
 
 They smeared the paint with turpentine 
 
 until 
 They could remove with mess-clouts every 
 
 trace 
 Of quick perception caught by patient skill 
 And lines that had brought blood into his 
 
 face; 
 They wiped the pigments off and did erase, 
 
16 DAUBER 
 
 With knives, all sticking clots : when they 
 
 had done 
 Under the boat they laid them every one. 
 
 All he had drawn since first he came to 
 
 sea, 
 His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid 
 
 them there; 
 They chuckled then to think how mad he'd 
 
 be 
 Finding his paintings vanished into air. 
 Eight bells were struck, and feet from every- 
 where 
 Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark. 
 The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red 
 
 spark. 
 Names in the darkness passed and voices 
 
 cried. 
 The red spark glowed and died, the faces 
 
 seemed 
 
DAUBER 17 
 
 As things remembered when a brain has 
 
 died 
 To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed ; 
 Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed, 
 And on the clipper rushed with tossing 
 
 mast, 
 A bath of flame broke round her as she 
 
 passed. 
 
 The watch was set, the night came, and the 
 
 men 
 Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to 
 
 sleep. 
 Bunched like the dead, still like the dead, as 
 
 when 
 Plague in a city leaves none even to weep. 
 The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad 
 
 sweep ; 
 The mate there felt her pulse and eyed the 
 
 spars. 
 
 c 
 
18 DAUBER 
 
 Southwest by south she staggered, under 
 the stars. 
 
 Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake 
 Thinking of his unfitness for the sea. 
 Each failure, each derision, each mistake, 
 There in the life not made for such as 
 
 he; 
 A morning grim with trouble sure to be, 
 A noon of pain from failure, and a night 
 Bitter with men's contemning and despite. 
 
 This in the first beginning, the green 
 
 leaf. 
 Still in the Trades before bad weather 
 
 fell; 
 What harvest would he reap of hate and 
 
 grief 
 When the loud Horn made every life a 
 
 hell? 
 
DAUBER 19 
 
 WTien the sick ship lay over, clanging her 
 bell, 
 
 And no time came for painting or for draw- 
 ing, 
 
 But all hands fought, and icy death came 
 clawing ? 
 
 Hell, he expected, hell. His eyes grew 
 
 blind , 
 The snoring from his messmates droned and 
 
 snuffled. 
 And then a gush of pity calmed his mind 
 And the sharp torment of his thought was 
 
 muffled, 
 Without, on deck, the old, old seaman 
 
 shuffled. 
 Humming his song, and through the open 
 
 door 
 A moonbeam moved and thrust along the 
 
 floor. 
 
20 DA UBER 
 
 The green bunk-curtains moved, the brass 
 rings cUcked, 
 
 The cook cursed in his sleep, turning and 
 turning. 
 
 The moonbeam's moving finger touched and 
 picked 
 
 And all the stars in all the sky were burning. 
 
 ''This is the art I've come for and am learn- 
 ing, 
 
 The sea and ships and men and travelling 
 things. 
 
 It is most proud, whatever pain it brings." 
 
 He leaned upon his arm and watched the 
 
 light 
 Sliding and fading to the steady roll ; 
 This he would some day paint, the ship at 
 
 night, 
 And sleeping seamen tired to the soul. 
 The space below the bunks as black as coal, 
 
DAUBER 21 
 
 Gleams upon chests, upon the unHt lamp, 
 The ranging door-hook and the locker clamp. 
 
 This he would paint, and that, and all these 
 
 scenes. 
 And proud ships carrying on, and men their 
 
 minds. 
 And blues of rollers toppling into greens 
 And shattering into white that bursts and 
 
 blinds. 
 And scattering ships running erect like 
 
 hinds. 
 And men in oilskins beating down a sail 
 High on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail, 
 
 With faces ducked down from the slanting 
 
 drive 
 Of half-thawed hail, mixed with half-frozen 
 
 spray, 
 The roaring canvas like a thing alive, 
 
22 DAUBER 
 
 Shaking the mast, knocking their hands 
 
 * away, 
 The footropes jerking to the tug and sway, 
 The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims 
 And icicles on the southwester brims. 
 
 And sunnier scenes would grow under his 
 
 brush, 
 The tropic dawn, with all things dropping 
 
 dew. 
 The darkness and the wonder and the hush. 
 The insensate gray before the marvel grew. 
 Then the veil lifted from the trembling 
 
 blue. 
 The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the rose, 
 All the expanse of heaven a mind that 
 
 glows. 
 
 He turned out of his bunk; the cook still 
 
 tossed. 
 One of the other two spoke in his sleep. 
 
DA UBER 23 
 
 A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam 
 
 crossed ; 
 Outside there was the ship, the night, the 
 
 deep. 
 "It is worth while," the youth said; ''I will 
 
 keep 
 To my resolve. I'll learn to paint all this. 
 My Lord! my God! how beautiful it is!" 
 
 Outside was the ship's rush to the wind's 
 
 hurry, 
 A resonant wire-hum from every rope, 
 The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry, 
 The leaning masts in their majestic slope, 
 And all things strange with moonlight : filled 
 
 with hope 
 By all that beauty going as man bade 
 He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells 
 
 were made. 
 
24 DA IJBER 
 
 II 
 
 Next day was Sunday, his free painting day, 
 While the fine weather held, from eight till 
 
 eight ; 
 He rose when called at five and did array 
 The roundhouse gear and set the kit bags 
 
 straight. 
 Then, kneeling down like housemaid at a 
 
 grate, 
 He scrubbed^^the deck with sand until his 
 
 knees 
 Were blue with dye from his wet dungarees. 
 
 He swabbed the deck with clouts till it was 
 dry, 
 
 Ranged straight the chests, scrubbed where 
 the chests had lain, 
 
 Roused out the lockers where the whack- 
 pots lie, 
 
DA UBER 25 
 
 Wiped all the tins and put them back 
 
 again. 
 Scrubbed at the lamp-room deck with might 
 
 and main 
 To get the oil stains out, then cleaned his 
 
 lamps, 
 Smoked by the night's affairs, greened by its 
 
 damps. 
 
 Soon all was clean, his Sunday tasks were 
 
 done. 
 His day was clear for painting as he 
 
 chose, 
 The wetted decks were drying in the sun ; 
 The men coiled up, or swabbed, or sought 
 
 repose. 
 The drifts of silver arrows fell and rose 
 As flying fish took wing and skimmed and 
 
 dipped. 
 A man poured buckets on the bosun stripped. 
 
26 DAUBER 
 
 Eight bells were made. The painter went 
 
 below. 
 "Now, Dauber, where's the breakfast?" 
 
 said his mates. 
 "Now don't stand staring; take the kettle, 
 
 go. 
 
 You like to have your loaf, whoever waits." 
 He fetched the kettle and the kid of cates. 
 Coffee and burgoo specked with many a 
 
 weevil. 
 "You're always last," the cook growled, 
 
 looking evil. 
 
 Next, at the meal, the bosun eyed the deck. 
 "Who cleaned the house out?" "Dauber." 
 
 "So I guessed. 
 I want this floor made white without a 
 
 speck. 
 Look there by Sails and see the way you've 
 
 messed ; 
 
DA UBER 27 
 
 All tide-marks where you let the water rest : 
 You've scrubbed in strips and left the space 
 
 between, 
 And now you'll get a stone and sweat it 
 
 clean." 
 
 Then Chips began: ''Now, Dauber," he 
 
 began, 
 "We only tell you this for your own good. 
 A man at sea has got to be a man 
 Or do without man's treatment and man's 
 
 food. 
 We won't have dirt : let that be understood. 
 Neither in you nor here." ''No," said the 
 
 Cook, 
 "The Dauber hasn't washed his hands yet; 
 
 look. 
 
 "Look at his hands, all oil still to the wrists. 
 Why do you come to breakfast with such 
 hands ? 
 
28 DAUBER 
 
 Bringing our breakfast, too, in dirty fists, 
 
 Marking my kids : look here at Dauber's 
 brands." 
 
 The bosun spoke : ''I've been in some com- 
 mands. 
 
 They'd scrub a man for dirt Hke that," 
 he said ; 
 
 "Stripped bare, with sand and canvas, in 
 the head." 
 
 Sails spoke again: ''Dauber," he said, 
 "you strip. 
 
 Unless you're clean we'll sand-and-canvas 
 you. 
 
 If one man goes he gives it to the ship. 
 
 So what the crowd does every one must do. 
 
 So strip and scrub or we shall learn you to 
 
 With the fore-brace : now do it. Cleanli- 
 ness 
 
 Before burgoo, and painting, too, I guess." 
 
JDA UBER . 29 
 
 ' ' That's you, ' ' said all. The Dauber stripped 
 and soaped; 
 
 His messmates eyed his points and mocked 
 his build : 
 
 His scraggy neck, his shoulders steeply 
 sloped. 
 
 His ribs all sunken in, his chest unfilled, 
 
 His arms like stalks, his little hands un- 
 skilled 
 
 To strangle sail in snow squalls off the Horn ; 
 
 And all the rest that shouldn't have been 
 born. 
 
 So precious time was wasted, bell by bell, 
 Before the washing and the breakfast ended, 
 The artist's leisure which the wise gods 
 
 sell 
 Only for life paid down and spirit spended. 
 The clipper hove her bows out and de- 
 scended. 
 
30 JDA UBER 
 
 Bright span the bubbles on that gUttering 
 
 sea. 
 The Dauber swept the crumbs up and was 
 
 free. 
 
 Free for two hours and more to tingle deep, 
 Catching a likeness in a line or tint, 
 The canvas running up in a proud sweep, 
 Wind-wrinkled at the clews and white Uke 
 
 lint, 
 The glittering of the blue waves into glint. 
 Free to attempt it all, the proud ship's 
 
 pawings. 
 The sea, the sky : he went to fetch his draw- 
 ings. 
 
 Up to the deck-house top he quickly 
 
 climbed ; 
 He stooped to find them underneath the 
 
 boat. 
 
DA UBER 31 
 
 He found them all obliterated, slimed, 
 Blotted, erased, gone from him line and note. 
 They were all spoiled; a lump came in 
 
 his throat, 
 Being vain of his attempts and tender 
 
 skinned. 
 Beneath the light the watching reefers 
 
 grinned. 
 
 The knives had made some of the canvas 
 
 rough, 
 Spoiling the surface for a new endeavour. 
 Three were so spoiled, the rest were good 
 
 enough. 
 Though all they once had borne was gone 
 
 for ever. 
 ''Ah, I suppose," he said, ''they think that 
 
 clever : 
 It's easy to destroy ; doing's the pain : 
 Now I shall have to do them all again." 
 
32 DAUBER 
 
 He clambered down, holding the ruined 
 
 things. 
 "Bosun," he called, ''look here, did you do 
 
 these ? 
 Wipe off my paints and cut them into 
 
 strings 
 And smear them till you can't tell chalk 
 
 from cheese. 
 Don't stare, but did you do it ? Answer, 
 
 please." 
 The bosun turned. ''I'll give you a thick 
 
 ear. 
 Do it? I didn't. Get to hell from here. 
 
 "I touch your stinking daubs? The 
 
 Dauber's daft." 
 A crowd was gathering now to hear the 
 
 fun. 
 The reefers tumbled out, the men laid 
 
 aft. 
 
DA UBER 33 
 
 The cook blinked, cleaning a mess-kid in 
 the sun; 
 
 "What's up with Dauber now?" said every- 
 one. ' 
 
 "Someone has spoiled my drawings, look 
 at this." 
 
 "Well, that's a dirty trick, by God it is." 
 
 "It is," said Sam, "a low-down dirty trick 
 To spoil a fellow's work in such a way, 
 And if you catch him. Dauber, punch him 
 
 sick. 
 For he deserves it, be he who he may." 
 A seaman shook his old head, wise and gray. 
 "It seems to me," he said, "who ain't no 
 
 judge, 
 Them drawings look much better now 
 
 they're smudge." 
 
 "I think the same," said Cook; "and I," 
 said Sails, 
 
34 DAUBER 
 
 ''Not that that's consolation, but it's true. 
 You find the man and cut him into 
 
 wales ; 
 I would, I tell you flat, if I were you." 
 ''When was it done?" "Last night." "I 
 
 wonder who. 
 The three mates look suspicious, don't they, 
 
 fellows ? 
 It might be them, or is the old man 
 
 jealous?" 
 
 "Where were they. Dauber?" "On the 
 
 deck-house." "Where?" 
 "Under the long boat, in a secret place." 
 "The blackguard must have watched you 
 
 put them there. 
 He is a swine. I tell him to his face. 
 I didn't think we'd anyone so base." 
 "Nor I," said Dauber. "There was six 
 
 weeks' time 
 
DA USER 35 
 
 Just wasted in these drawings; it's a 
 crime." 
 
 "Well, don't you say we did it," growled 
 his mates. 
 
 ''And as for crime, be damned, the things 
 were smears. 
 
 Best overboard, like you, with shot for 
 weights. 
 
 Thank God they're gone, and now go shake 
 your ears." 
 
 The Dauber hstened, very near to tears; 
 
 ''Dauber, if I were you," said Sam again, 
 
 "I'd aft, and see the captain, and com- 
 plain." 
 
 A sigh came from the assembled seamen 
 
 there. 
 Would he be such a fool for their delight 
 As go to tell the captain ? Would he dare ? 
 
36 DA UBEB 
 
 And would the thunder roar, the lightning 
 
 smite ? 
 There was the captain come to take a 
 
 sight, 
 Handling his sextant by the chart house 
 
 aft. 
 The Dauber turned, the seamen thought 
 
 him daft. 
 
 The captain took his sights, a mate 
 
 below 
 Noted the times ; they shouted to each 
 
 other, 
 The captain quick with ''Stop," the answer 
 
 slow. 
 Repeating slowly one height, then another : 
 The swooping clipper stumbled through the 
 
 smother. 
 The ladder-brasses in the sunlight burned. 
 The Dauber waited till the captain turned. 
 
DA UBER 37 
 
 Under the jigger-staysail, hat in hand, 
 Head bent, as fits a suppliant out at sea, 
 He waited for dismissal or command, 
 As much alone as any man can be. 
 The mate was aft about the log, or he 
 Would have dismissed him forward, no word 
 
 said; 
 The captain eyed the trim and turned his 
 
 head. 
 
 There stood the Dauber, humbled to the 
 
 bone, 
 Waiting as though to speak; he let him 
 
 wait. 
 Glanced at the course and called in even 
 
 tone, 
 ''What is the man there wanting, Mr. 
 
 Mate?" 
 The logship clattered on the grating 
 
 straight, 
 
38 DAUBER 
 
 The reel rolled to the scuppers with a 
 
 clatter, 
 The mate came grim: ''Well, Dauber, 
 
 what's the matter?" 
 
 "Please, sir, they spoiled my drawings." 
 
 ''Who did?" "They." 
 "Who's they?" "I don't quite know, sir." 
 "Don't quite know, sir? 
 Then why are you aft to talk about it, hey ? 
 Whom d'you complain of?" "No one." 
 
 "No one?" "No, sir." 
 "Well, then, go forward till you've found 
 
 them. Go, sir. 
 If you complain of someone, then I'll see. 
 Now get to hell and don't come bothering 
 
 "But, sir, they washed them off and some 
 they cut. 
 
DA UBER 39 
 
 Look here, sir, how they spoiled them." 
 
 ''Never mind. 
 Go shove your head inside the scuttle butt 
 And that will make you cooler. You will 
 
 find 
 Nothing like water when you're mad and 
 
 bhnd. 
 Where were the drawings? In your chest 
 
 or where?" 
 "Under the long boat, sir; I put them 
 
 there." 
 
 "Under the long boat, hey? Now mind 
 
 your tip. 
 I'll have the skids kept clear with nothing 
 
 round them. 
 The long boat ain't a store in this here ship. 
 Lucky for you it wasn't I who found them. 
 If I had seen them, Dauber, I'd have 
 
 drowned them. 
 
40 DAUBER 
 
 Now you be warned by this. I tell you 
 
 plain, 
 Don't stow your brass-rags under boats 
 
 again. 
 
 "Go forward to your berth." The Dauber 
 
 turned. 
 The listeners down below them winked 
 
 and smiled, 
 Knowing how red the Dauber's temples 
 
 burned. 
 Having lost the case about his only child 
 His work was done to nothing and defiled, 
 And there was no redress : the captain's 
 
 voice 
 Spoke, and called ^'Painter," making him 
 
 rejoice. 
 
 The captain and the mate conversed to- 
 gether. 
 
DA UBER 41 
 
 ''Drawings, you tell me, Mister?" "Yes, 
 
 sir, views : 
 Wiped off with turps, I gather that's his 
 
 blether. 
 He says they're things he can't afford to lose. 
 He's Dick, who came to sea in dancing 
 
 shoes 
 And found the dance a bear dance. They 
 
 were hidden 
 Under the long boat's chocks, which I've 
 
 forbidden." 
 
 ''Wiped off with turps?" The captain 
 sucked his lip. 
 
 "Who did it, Mister?" "Reefers, I sup- 
 pose. 
 
 Them devils do the most pranks in a 
 ship; 
 
 The roundhouse might have done it, cook 
 or bose." 
 
42 DAUBER 
 
 "I can't take notice of it till he knows. 
 How does he do his work?" '^Well, no 
 
 offence ; 
 He tries; he does his best. He's got no 
 
 ''Painter," the captain called; the Dauber 
 
 came. 
 "What's all this talk of drawings? What's 
 
 the matter?" 
 "They spoiled my drawings, sir." "Well, 
 
 who's to blame? 
 The long boat's there for no one to get at 
 
 her; 
 You broke the rules, and if you choose to 
 
 scatter 
 Gear up and down where it's no right to 
 
 be 
 And suffer as result, don't come to 
 
 me. 
 
DAUBER 43 
 
 "Your place is iu the roundhouse, and 
 
 your gear 
 Belongs where you belong. Who spoiled 
 
 your things? 
 Find out who spoiled your things and fetch 
 
 him here." 
 ''But, sir, they cut the canvas into strings." 
 ''I want no argument nor questionings. 
 Go back where you belong and say no 
 
 more. 
 And please remember that you're not on 
 
 shore." 
 
 The Dauber touched his brow and slunk 
 away; 
 
 They eyed his going with a bitter eye. 
 
 ''Dauber," said Sam, "what did the cap- 
 tain say?" 
 
 The Dauber drooped his head without 
 reply. 
 
44 DA UBER 
 
 "Go forward, Dauber, and enjoy your 
 
 cry." 
 The mate limped to the rail and conned 
 
 the craft, 
 ''Bosun," he called: the bosun hurried 
 
 aft. 
 
 ''What's this of Dauber's drawings being 
 spoiled?" 
 
 The bosun spat. "The come-day-go-day 
 fool, 
 
 A junk-laid twice-laid hank of left-hand- 
 coiled : 
 
 The reefers done it last night in the 
 cool. 
 
 His job's the minder's in an infant school ; 
 
 Not coming to sea: the reefers done't at 
 night. 
 
 They scoffed the lot, and I say serve him 
 right. 
 
DAUBER 45 
 
 "He's always playing hell with paints or 
 chalk, 
 
 Making some mess or other, or a stink." 
 
 ''Right," said the mate; he turned, re- 
 sumed his walk, 
 
 Watching the trembling water droop and 
 blink. 
 
 The topsail sheets would home another link. 
 
 He gave the order; the strong-shouldered 
 men 
 
 Hauled, singing out, belayed, and slouched 
 again. 
 
 "Well, that," exclaimed the mate; he eyed 
 
 the trim ; 
 All things were romping full, the Trade 
 
 Wind clouds 
 Like flocks on the horizon clustered dim; 
 Black shadows crossed the deck from stays 
 
 and shrouds. 
 
46 DA UBER 
 
 The wavering silver arrows rose in crowds. 
 ''Bosun," he cried, and when the man drew 
 
 near, 
 ''In future see the long-boat skids kept 
 
 clear. 
 
 "Go round them every night. See round 
 
 the boats." 
 "Ay, ay, sir," said the bosun: all was said. 
 Two brace blocks piped aloft in different 
 
 notes, 
 The reef points pattered softly overhead. 
 Softly, but hurrying, too, as children tread, 
 A hush, a long swift hurry of little feet, 
 So faint, so sure, the drumming reef points 
 
 beat. 
 
 The Dauber reached the berth and entered 
 
 in. 
 Much mockery followed after as he went, 
 
DAUBER 47 
 
 And each face seemed to greet him with 
 the grin 
 
 Of hounds hot following on a creature spent. 
 
 ''Aren't you a fool?" each mocking visage 
 meant. 
 
 ''Who did it, Dauber? What did cap- 
 tain say? 
 
 It is a crime, and there'll be hell to pay." 
 
 He bowed his head, the house was full of 
 
 smoke, 
 The Sails was pointing shackles on his 
 
 chest. 
 "Lord, Dauber, be a man and take a 
 
 joke"- 
 He puffed his pipe — "and let the matter 
 
 rest. 
 Spit brown, my son, and get a hairy breast ; 
 Get shoulders on you at the crojick braces, 
 And let this painting business go to blazes. 
 
48 DA UBER 
 
 ''What good can painting do to anyone? 
 I don't say never do it; far from that, 
 No harm in sometimes painting just for 
 
 fun. 
 Keep it for fun, and stick to what you're at. 
 Your job's to fill your bones up and get 
 
 fat, 
 Kib up like Barney's bull and thick your 
 
 neck, 
 Throw paints to hell, boy, you belong on 
 
 deck." 
 
 ''That's right," said Chips, "it's downright 
 good advice. 
 
 Painting's no good. WTiat good can paint- 
 ing do 
 
 Up on a lower topsail stiff with ice, 
 
 With all your little fishhooks frozen blue? 
 
 Painting won't help you at the weather 
 clew 
 
DAUBER 49 
 
 Nor pass your gaskets for you, nor make 
 
 sail ; 
 Painting's a balmy's job not worth a nail. 
 
 " Of course some famous painters do it 
 
 well, 
 Make money, too; there's Hogarth did it 
 
 right, 
 Who did the Harlot's Progress, that they 
 
 sell 
 In Tiger Bay and up in Fan's Delight : 
 You'd think the views, perhaps, a bawdy 
 
 sight. 
 But I was shipmates one time with a mate 
 Who said he use't to keep his daughter 
 
 straight. 
 
 ''And then there's others said to do it 
 
 good 
 As well as Hogarth, better, too, but then 
 
50 DAUBER 
 
 Them ducks are born with painting in the 
 
 blood, 
 They know the business and are famous 
 
 men. 
 I saw some pictures by them one time when 
 I came to London in the Golden Rose. 
 I tell you, Dauber, they were pictures, 
 
 those. 
 
 " Like life some of the sheep were, beautiful, 
 They stood right out, you could have heard 
 
 them bleat : 
 But for the glass you could have felt their 
 
 wool, 
 And count the grass blades underneath their 
 
 feet. 
 And plums, like real, you could have almost 
 
 eat. 
 And one called 'Tragic News,' a young 
 
 girl sighing. 
 
DA UBER 51 
 
 You'll never paint like them, it's no use 
 trying. 
 
 "Wasting your time I call it, what you do, 
 Getting good paint and canvas slopped and 
 
 messed. 
 A Chinaman does better ships than you 
 For half a dollar in a reefer's chest. 
 I tell you frankly, drop it, you'd be best 
 Drop it before you must, and don't think 
 
 twice. 
 You'll thank me some day for my good 
 
 advice." 
 
 The Dauber did not answer; time was 
 
 passing. 
 He pulled his easel out, his paints, his 
 
 stool. 
 The wind was dropping and the sea was 
 
 glassing. 
 
52 DA UBEE 
 
 New realms of beauty waited for his rule. 
 The draught out of the crojick kept him 
 
 cool. 
 He sat to paint, alone and melancholy. 
 ''No turning fools," the Chips said, ''from 
 
 their folly." 
 
 He dipped his brush, and tried to fix a line, 
 And then came peace, and gentle beauty 
 
 came. 
 Turning his spirit's water into wine. 
 Lightening his darkness with a touch of 
 
 flame : 
 O joy of trying for beauty, ever the same, 
 You never fail, your comforts never end ; 
 O balm of this world's way, O perfect 
 
 friend. 
 
 There the four leaning spires of canvas 
 rose. 
 
DA UBER 53 
 
 Royals and skysails lifting, gently lifting, 
 White like the brightness that a great fish 
 
 blows 
 When billows are at peace and ships are 
 
 drifting : 
 With mighty jerks that set the shadows 
 
 shifting, 
 The courses tugged their tethers : a blue 
 
 haze 
 Drifted like ghosts of flocks come down to 
 
 graze. 
 
 There the great skyline made her perfect 
 round, 
 
 Notched now and then by the sea's deeper 
 blue, 
 
 A smoke-smutch marked a steamer home- 
 ward bound, 
 
 The haze wrought all things to intenser 
 hue. 
 
64 DAUBER 
 
 In tingling impotence the Dauber drew 
 
 As all men draw, keen to the shaken soul, 
 
 To give a hint that might suggest the 
 whole. 
 
 A naked seaman washing a red shirt 
 Sat at a tub whistling between his teeth; 
 Complaining blocks quavered like something 
 
 hurt. 
 A sailor cut an old boot for a sheath, 
 The ship bowed to her shadow-ship beneath 
 And little slaps of spray came at the roll 
 On to the deck planks from the scupper- 
 hole. 
 
 He watched it, painting patiently, as paints 
 With eyes that pierce behind the blue sky's 
 
 veil 
 The Benedictine in a Book of Saints 
 Watching the passing of the Holy Grail, 
 
DAUBER 65 
 
 The green dish dripping blood, the trump, 
 
 the hail, 
 The spears that pass, the memory and the 
 
 passion. 
 The beauty moving under this world's 
 
 fashion. 
 
 The reefers watched him from the deck- 
 house top. 
 Eager lest any rope should be mislaid, 
 Or grubbing under boats for yarns to drop 
 On to the colours on his palette 'splayed: 
 Many a mock, many a jest they made. 
 ''Is it a ship he's doing?" ''Ask him." 
 
 "No, 
 That's not a ship, Dick ; it's a raree show." 
 
 He painted on, not caring, hardly hearing, 
 He breathed another air within his brain. 
 He saw the image of his thought appearing, 
 
56 DAUBER 
 
 His minute's power made his pathway plain. 
 He was achieving now, he would attain 
 Past peak and stopping place on art's slow 
 
 rise 
 To miracles of ships and seas and skies. 
 
 Ill 
 
 They lost the Trades soon after ; then came 
 calm, 
 
 Light little gusts and rain, which soon in- 
 creased 
 
 To glorious northers shouting out a psalm 
 
 At seeing the bright blue water silver-fleeced. 
 
 Horn-wards she rushed, trampling the seas 
 to yeast ; 
 
 There fell a rain-squall in a blind day's 
 end. 
 
 When for an hour the Dauber found a 
 friend 
 
DAUBER 57 
 
 Out of the rain the voices called and passed, 
 The staysails flogged, the tackle yanked and 
 
 shook ; 
 Inside the harness-room a lantern cast 
 Light and wild shadows as it ranged its 
 
 hook. 
 The watch on deck was gathered in the 
 
 nook. 
 They had taken shelter in that secret place ; 
 Wild light gave wild emotions to each face. 
 
 One beat the beef-cask and the others sang 
 A song that had brought anchors out of 
 
 seas 
 In ports where bells of Christians never 
 
 rang. 
 Nor any sea-mark blazed among the trees. 
 By forlorn swamps, in ice, by windy keys, 
 That song had sounded; now it shook the 
 
 air 
 
58 DAUBER 
 
 From these eight wanderers brought to- 
 gether there. 
 
 Under the poop-break, sheltering from the 
 
 rain, 
 The Dauber sketched some likeness of the 
 
 room, 
 A note to be a prompting to his brain, 
 A spark to make old memory re-illume. 
 ''Dauber," said someone near him in the 
 
 gloom, 
 "How goes it, Dauber?" It was reefer 
 
 Si. 
 ''There's not much use in trying to keep 
 
 dry." 
 
 "No," said the Dauber. "What you 
 
 doing?" "Drawing . . . 
 Drawing the watch in there." "A jolly 
 
 crowd. . . . 
 
DA UBER 59 
 
 They're always having sing-songs or else 
 
 jawing. 
 If I could paint like you, Daub, I'd be proud. 
 The mate's just overhead, so don't talk loud. 
 I'd like to paint like you. Sit down and talk. 
 The deck's too swimming wet to take a 
 
 caulk." 
 
 They sat upon the sail-room doorway coam- 
 ing; 
 
 The lad held forth like youth ; the Dauber 
 listened 
 
 To how the boy had had a taste for roam- 
 ing, 
 
 And what the sea is said to be and isn't. 
 
 Wliere the dim lamplight fell the wet deck 
 glistened ; 
 
 Si said the Horn was still two weeks away. 
 
 ''But tell TCiQ, Dauber, where d'you hail 
 from? Eh?" 
 
60 DAUBER 
 
 The rain blew past and let the stars appear, . 
 The seas grew larger as the moonlight grew, 
 For half an hour the ring of heaven was 
 
 clear, 
 Dusty with moonlight, grey rather than 
 
 blue ; 
 In that great moon the showing stars were 
 
 few. 
 The sleepy time-boy's feet passed overhead. 
 ''I come from out past Gloucester," Dauber 
 
 said. 
 
 '' Not far from Pauntley, if you know those 
 
 parts ; 
 The place is Spital Farm near Silver Hill, 
 Above a traphatch where a mill stream 
 
 starts. 
 We had the mill once, but we've stopped the 
 
 mill. 
 My dad and sister keep the farm on still. 
 
DA UBER 61 
 
 We're only tenants, but we've rented there, 
 Father and son, for over eighty year. 
 
 " My grandad had it first, as a young man, 
 
 During Napoleon's wars, oh, years ago. 
 
 Farming was rich man's work when he be- 
 gan, 
 
 And he could farm; he made the corn to 
 grow. 
 
 He cropped on bits we wouldn't even sow. 
 
 There were big profits then on breadstufi^s ; 
 he 
 
 Had thirty acres corn where we have three. 
 
 '* I've heard my father say that grandfer 
 
 said 
 That when he first began and 'tended fairs, 
 The farmers' ordinaries, where they fed, 
 Would charge the men a guinea each for 
 
 chairs. 
 
62 DA UBER 
 
 And fiddlers came, all dinner, playing airs, 
 And all men drank champagne. That 
 
 would seem strange 
 In farmers' inns to-day after Exchange. 
 
 "Well, grandfer had the farm until he died. 
 
 He held it sixty years from the same squire, 
 
 He saw great changes in that country- 
 side. 
 
 And miles of cornland go again to mire. 
 
 And men, who'd drunk champagne, without 
 a fire, 
 
 For corn came down to nothing with a 
 run 
 
 And never rose after the wars were done. 
 
 " Father was born the year the riots were 
 In Bristol, so he says ; my grandma said 
 That when they burnt the town she saw the 
 glare. 
 
DAUBER 63 
 
 Making the sky at midnight deep dull 
 
 red. 
 She saw it kindling as she lay in bed 
 Just after dad was born, dad in the cot, 
 And nurse beside her snoring like a sot. 
 
 " Father has worked the farm since grandfer 
 
 went; 
 It means the world to him, I can't think 
 
 why. 
 They bleed him to the last half-crown for 
 
 rent, 
 And this and that have almost milked him 
 
 dry. 
 The land's all starved; if he'd put money 
 
 by, 
 
 And corn was up and rent was down two- 
 thirds. . . . 
 
 But then they aren't, so what's the use of 
 words ? ■ 
 
64 DAUBER 
 
 "Yet all the same it means the world to 
 
 him, 
 The Spital Farm that he and grandfer 
 
 made ; 
 They've given their lives to bring it into 
 
 trim, 
 They've worn out many a plough and many 
 
 a spade. 
 And worked a many a cart-horse to a jade. 
 Dragging the waggons off the empty field; 
 It's his life's fight ; he doesn't like to yield. 
 
 " And then his life's been spent there, man 
 
 and boy; 
 He courted mother there, and lived there 
 
 after. 
 He's had his sixty years there, and his 
 
 joy; 
 He's had his happy blessings and his laugh- 
 ter. 
 
DA UBER 65 
 
 He cut our names and grandfer's on a 
 
 rafter. 
 He hopes his children's names, when he is 
 
 cold, 
 Will fill the rafter full as it will hold. 
 
 "He couldn't bear to see the Spital pass 
 To strangers, or to think a time would 
 
 come 
 When other men than us would mow the 
 
 grass, 
 And other names than ours have the home. 
 Some sorrows come from evil thought, but 
 
 some 
 Come when two men are near and both are 
 
 bUnd 
 To what is generous in the other's mind. 
 
 ''My mother came from under Meon Hill; 
 She died when I was only ten, poor woman ! 
 
66 DAUBER 
 
 I know my memory of lier's living still, 
 And will, I hope, as long as I'm a human. 
 For no man had a mother like her, no man. 
 She wasn't like my father : rose and oak. 
 It wasn't marriage, but the Devil's joke. 
 
 ''I was the only boy, and father thought 
 I'd farm the Spital after he was dead, 
 And many a time he took me out and taught 
 About manures and seed-corn white and 
 
 red, 
 And soils and hops ; but I'd an empty head. 
 Harvest or seed, I would not do a turn ; 
 I loathed the farm, I didn't want to learn. 
 
 "After my mother died, when I was ten, 
 I went about more while the work was 
 
 doing, 
 And, being a boy, I liked to help the men, 
 And taste the pomace at the cider screwing, 
 
DAUBER 67 
 
 And ride the plough team to the forge for 
 
 shoeing, 
 Or pick in hop yard, but I would not do 
 The harder lessons father set me to. 
 
 ''And when he tried to teach me how to 
 
 plough, 
 I wanted him to tell me how the earth 
 Nourished the seed-corn in the dark, and 
 
 how 
 The sun and rain could give the green grass 
 
 birth. 
 And why there was no remedy for dearth. 
 And such-like simple questionings ; but 
 
 when 
 He tried to tell, I was for ploughing then. 
 
 ''He did not mind at first, he thought it 
 
 youth 
 Feeling the collar, and that I should change ; 
 
68 DAUBER 
 
 Then time gave him some inklings of the 
 
 truth, 
 And that I loatlied the farm and wished to 
 
 range. 
 Truth to a man of fifty's always strange; 
 It was most strange and terrible to him; 
 It took his lamp just when his light grew 
 
 dim. 
 
 " Yet still he hoped the Lord might change 
 
 my mind. 
 I'd see him bridle-in his wrath and hate, 
 And almost break my heart he was so kind, 
 Biting his lips sore with resolve to wait. 
 And then I'd try awhile : but it was Fate : 
 I didn't want to learn ; the farm to me 
 Was mire and hopeless work and misery. 
 
 " Though there were things I loved about it, 
 too. 
 
DAUBER 69 
 
 The beasts, the apple trees, and going 
 
 haying, 
 And then I tried ; but no, it wouldn't do, 
 The farm was prison and my thoughts were 
 
 straying. 
 And there' d come father, with his grey 
 
 head, praying. 
 ' Oh my dear son, don't let the Spital pass : 
 It's my old home, boy, where your grandfer 
 
 was. 
 
 "'And now you won't learn farming; you 
 
 don't care; 
 The old home's nought to you. I've tried 
 
 to teach you, 
 I've begged Almighty God, boy, all I dare. 
 To use His hand if word of mine won't 
 
 reach you. 
 Boy, for your grandfer's sake I do beseech 
 
 you, 
 
70 DA UBER 
 
 Don't let the Spital pass to strangers. 
 
 Squire 
 Has said he'd give it you if we require. 
 
 " ' Your mother used to walk here, boy, 
 
 with me; 
 It was her favourite walk down to the 
 
 mill, 
 And there we'd talk how little death would 
 
 be 
 Knowing our work was going on here still. 
 You've got the brains, you only want the 
 
 will. 
 Don't disappoint your mother and your 
 
 father. 
 I'll give you time to travel, if you'd rather.' 
 
 " It wasn't travelhng, though, that filled my 
 
 mind; 
 I could forget the farm by wandering out, 
 
DAUBER 71 
 
 Tracing the little brooks and trying to 
 
 find 
 A gravelly stretch with belly-rubbing trout. 
 Or, trickling from a dock-leaf in the spout, 
 Beside some lonely cottage up the hill, 
 The source of waters that would turn our 
 
 mill. 
 
 " That's what I loved, water, and time to 
 
 read. 
 Then I'd come home to sister's nagging 
 
 tongue, 
 Saying my sin made father's heart to 
 
 bleed, 
 And how she feared she'd live to see me 
 
 hung. 
 And then she'd read me bits from Dr. 
 
 Young, 
 And supper would begin, and sister Jane 
 Would fillip dad till dad began again. 
 
72 DAUBER 
 
 '''I've been here all my life, boy. I was 
 
 born 
 Up in the room above, looks on the mead; 
 I never thought you'd cockle my clean corn 
 And leave the old home to a stranger's seed. 
 Father and I have made here 'thout a weed : 
 We've give our lives to make that. Eighty 
 
 years. 
 And now I go down to the grave in tears.' 
 
 "And then I'd get ashamed and take off 
 coat, 
 
 And work maybe a week, ploughing or sow- 
 ing, 
 
 And then I'd creep away and sail my 
 boat. 
 
 Or watch the water when the mill was 
 going. 
 
 That's my delight, to be near water flow- 
 ing, 
 
DAUBER 73 
 
 Dabbling or sailing boats or jumping stanks 
 Or finding moorhens' nests along the banks. 
 
 " Then dad would catch me come away from 
 
 work, 
 Going along the water, watching things. 
 And lose his temper, p'raps, and call me 
 
 shirk, 
 And then we'd words, and tears, and par- 
 
 donings. 
 And then I'd work, until the brooks and 
 
 springs 
 Drew me away again to my heart's joy. 
 I did love being by water as a boy. 
 
 " One day my father found a ship I'd built ; 
 He took the cart whip to me over that. 
 And I, half mad with pain and sick with 
 
 guilt. 
 Went up and hid in what we called the flat : 
 
74 DAUBER 
 
 A dusty hole given over to the cat ; 
 
 She kittened there, the kittens had worn 
 
 paths 
 Among the cobwebs, dust, and broken 
 
 laths. 
 
 '' So there I blubbered in the dust awhile, 
 With bits of plaster dropping in my eyes. 
 And then the little kittens made me smile. 
 They were so cunning planning a surprise. 
 There was a hole with sunlight full of flies, 
 And they'd come creeping up and pounce 
 
 and miss. 
 And I got interested, watching this. 
 
 "And putting down my hand between the 
 
 beams 
 I felt a leathery thing and pulled it clear; 
 A book with white cocoons stuck in the 
 
 seams ; 
 
DAUBER 75 
 
 The spiders had had nests there many a 
 
 year. 
 It was my mother's sketch-book ; hid, I fear, 
 Out of my father's sight : he couldn't bear 
 For her to do a thing he couldn't share. 
 
 "There were her drawings, done when she 
 
 was a girl, 
 Before she knew what sorrow was, or dad ; 
 Before she put her front hair out of curl; 
 She'd leisure then for drawing, mother had. 
 She'd hid them in the roof like something 
 
 bad. 
 Something she dare not show or felt a 
 
 shame of. 
 For fear of being chid or made a game of. 
 
 "That was a find for me, that was a 
 
 treasure, 
 I didn't heed my cart-whip weals a scrap. 
 
76 BAUBEE 
 
 And most the valley pictures gave me 
 
 pleasure, 
 With fields like counties in a printed map, 
 Or Bredon Hill in cloud wearing his cap. 
 Or Meon (where she played), or Sheepey 
 
 Top, 
 Or sunny hayfields full of clover cop. 
 
 ^' And one of Bristol. On her wedding- 
 day 
 
 They went to Bristol by the Gloucester 
 mail. 
 
 And father sparked her out to see the play, 
 
 Maria's Necklace and the Winter's Tale. 
 
 There was the yellow playbill withered 
 pale, 
 
 Stuck in the book, and then a sketch she 
 
 « 
 
 did 
 Before she stopped being Queen or father 
 chid. 
 
DAUBER 77 
 
 " There were the dates upon them, pencilled 
 faint ; 
 
 March was the last one, eighteen sixty- 
 three, 
 
 Unfinished, that, for tears had smeared the 
 paint ; 
 
 The rest was landscape not yet brought to 
 be. 
 
 That was a holy afternoon to me, 
 
 That book a sacred book, the flat a place 
 
 Where I could meet my mother face to 
 face. 
 
 " It was my secret room from that time on. 
 
 many a golden time I spent up there. 
 Father and sister wondered where I'd gone, 
 But I was in the cobwebs, in my lair, 
 
 And through the peephole letting in the air 
 
 1 could command the valley at a look 
 And draw it on a blank page in the book. 
 
78 DAUBER 
 
 "And after that drawing became my joy. 
 I cared for nothing else. I drew, I drew 
 Faster than dad or sister could destroy, 
 For everything I saw I tried to do. 
 To see the thing distinct and get it true. 
 And catch the very motion, as when grass 
 Or corn is ruffled when the flurries pass. 
 
 " That was my aim : I worked at that, I 
 
 toiled. 
 And every penny I could get I spent 
 On paints, crayons, or paper which I spoiled 
 Up in the attic to my heart's content. 
 Till one day father asked me what I meant ; 
 The time had come, he said, to make an end ; 
 Now it must finish : what did I intend ? 
 
 "Either I took to farming, like his son, 
 In which case he would teach me, early and 
 late 
 
DA UBER 79 
 
 (Provided that my daubing mood was done) 
 Or I must go : it must be settled straight. 
 If I refused to farm : there was the gate. 
 I was to choose, his patience was all gone ; 
 The present state of things could not go on. 
 
 " Sister was there, she eyed me while he 
 spoke. 
 
 The kitchen clock ran down and struck the 
 hour, 
 
 And something told me father's heart was 
 broke. 
 
 For all he stood so set and looked so sour. 
 
 Jane took a duster and began to scour 
 
 A pewter on the dresser; she was crying. 
 
 I stood stock still a long time, not reply- 
 ing. 
 
 '''Well, Joe,' said Dad, 'which is it going 
 to be?' 
 
80 DAUBER 
 
 He waited; I said nothing; the clock 
 
 ticked ; 
 The cat with half-closed eyes purred at us 
 
 three ; 
 The wagging corner of the duster flicked. 
 I felt like a traitor in a story, tricked, 
 My secret writings found, my plots laid 
 
 bare. 
 And my Idng come for me to answer there. 
 
 " Dad waited, then he snorted and turned 
 
 round, 
 'Well, think of it,' he said; he left the 
 
 room. 
 His boots went clop along the stony 
 
 ground 
 Out to the orchard and the apple bloom. 
 A cloud came over the sun and made a 
 
 gloom. 
 I swallowed with dry lips ; then sister turned. 
 
DAUBER 81 
 
 She was dead white but for her eyes that 
 burned. 
 
 '''You're breaking father's heart, Joe," she 
 
 began. 
 'It's not as if . . .' she checked, in too much 
 
 pain. 
 "0 Joe, don't help to kill so fine a man. 
 You're giving him our mother over again. 
 It's wearing him to death, Joe, heart and 
 
 brain. 
 You know what store he sets on leaving this 
 To (it's too cruel) — to a son of his. 
 
 " ' Yet you go painting all the day. Oh, 
 
 Joe, 
 Couldn't you make an effort ? Can't you 
 
 see 
 What folly it is of yours? It's not as 
 
 though 
 
82 DA UBEB 
 
 You are a genius or could ever be. 
 Oh, Joe, for father's sake, if not for me 
 Give up this craze for painting and be 
 
 wise. 
 And work with father, where your duty Ues.' 
 
 "'It goes too deep,' I said; 'I loathe the 
 
 farm; 
 I couldn't help, even if I'd the mind. 
 Even if I helped I'd only do him harm. 
 Father would see it if he were not bUnd. 
 I was not built to farm, as he would find. 
 Oh, Jane, it's bitter hard to stand alone, 
 And spoil my father's hfe or spoil my 
 
 own.' 
 
 '''Spoil both,' she said, 'the way you're 
 
 shaping now. 
 You're only a boy not knowing your own 
 
 good. 
 
DA UBER 83 
 
 Where will you go, suppose you leave here? 
 
 how- 
 Do you propose to earn your daily food? 
 Draw? Daub the pavements? There's a 
 
 feckless brood 
 Goes to the devil daily, Joe, in cities 
 Only from thinking how divine their wit is. 
 
 " ' Clouds are they, without water, carried 
 away, 
 
 And you'll be one of them, the way you're 
 going. 
 
 Daubing at silly pictures all the day 
 
 And praised by silly fools who're always 
 blowing. 
 
 And you choose this when you might go 
 a-sowing. 
 
 Casting the good corn into chosen mould 
 
 That shall in time bring forth a hundred- 
 fold.' 
 
84 DAUBER 
 
 "So we went on, but in the end, it ended. 
 I felt I'd done a murder, I felt sick. 
 There's much in human minds cannot be 
 
 mended, 
 And that, not I, played dad a cruel trick. 
 There was one mercy : that it ended quick. 
 It did not di'ag along through years of 
 
 care. 
 Spoiling our lives and ending in despair. 
 
 "And then I joined my mother's brother: 
 
 he 
 Kept school at Braddoclode by Severn 
 
 stream ; 
 A man so broken down by misery 
 His life went by him in a kind of dream. 
 But sometimes in his eyes there' d come a 
 
 gleam 
 Remembering one he'd loved there years 
 
 before, 
 
DA USER 85 
 
 Drowned by the tide, poor woman, off the 
 shore. 
 
 ''And there I learned house-painting for a 
 
 Hving ; 
 I'd have been happy there, but that I knew 
 I'd sinned before my father past forgiving, 
 And that they sat at home, that silent two, 
 Wearing the fire out and the evening 
 
 through, 
 Silent, defeated, broken, in despair, 
 My plate unset, my name gone, and my 
 
 chair. 
 
 " Sitting and hardly talking : father think- 
 ing 
 
 How when he died the auctioneers would sit 
 
 Blue-pencilling their lists where he sat; 
 drinking. 
 
 Marking the sales or knocking off to spit. 
 
86 DAUBER 
 
 The glass would be all broke, the grate 
 unlit, 
 
 The beasts gone from the barton : auction 
 bills 
 
 Stuck on the trees or hung from window- 
 sills. 
 
 ''And boot-marks and cigar-ends on the 
 
 grass. 
 And the old name gone from the ancient 
 
 hold. 
 And none but Jane to see the Spital 
 
 pass 
 To one who had not walked its fields of 
 
 old; 
 And strangers there, before his blood was 
 
 cold 
 Down in the grave, changing his old routine. 
 Putting the tallat where the oasts had 
 
 been. 
 
DAUBER 87 
 
 " I saw all that ; and sister Jane came white, 
 White as a ghost, with fiery weeping ej'^es, 
 I saw her all day long and half the night, 
 Bitter as gall, and passionate and wise. 
 'Joe, you have killed your father: there 
 
 he lies. 
 You have done your work, you with our 
 
 mother's ways.' 
 She said it plain, and then her eyes would 
 
 blaze. 
 
 ''And then one day I had a job to do, 
 Down below bridge, by where the docks 
 
 begin ; 
 And there I saw a clipper towing through 
 The open gates ; she was just entering in. 
 Raked to the nines she was, lofty and thin, 
 A skysail-yarded clipper so well kept 
 She glistened like a racehorse as she 
 
 stepped. 
 
88 DAUBER 
 
 "That altered life for me; I had never 
 
 seen 
 A ship before, for all my thought of ships ; 
 And there was this great clipper like a 
 
 queen, 
 With a white curl of bubbles at her lips, 
 All made of beauty to the stern's ellipse, 
 Her ensign ruffling red, her bunts in pile, 
 Beauty and strength together, wonder, style. 
 
 "She docked close to the gates and there 
 
 she lay 
 Over the stream from me, but well in sight. 
 And as I worked I watched her all the day, 
 Finding her beauty ever fresh delight. 
 Her house-flag was bright green with strips 
 
 of white; 
 High in the sunny air it rose to shake 
 Above the skysail poles' most splendid 
 rake. 
 
DAUBER 89 
 
 "For six weeks more I was kept painting 
 
 there 
 Down below bridge, where all the river's 
 
 salt, 
 And every day her beauty seemed more fair, 
 And came more home to make my heart 
 
 exalt. 
 Her lines, her spiring masts without a fault, 
 Her fan of mighty rigging reaching down : 
 She was a thing too queenly for a crown. 
 
 "I wasn't happy then; I felt too keenly 
 How hard it is to paint ; but when I saw 
 Her masts across the river rising queenly, 
 Built out of so much chaos brought to 
 
 law, 
 I learned the power of knowing how to 
 
 draw, 
 Of beating thought into the perfect line, 
 I vowed to make that power of beauty mine. 
 
90 DAUBER 
 
 ''And when I felt unhappy I would look 
 Over the river at her, and her pride, 
 So calm, so quiet, came as a rebuke 
 To half the passionate pathways which I 
 
 tried. 
 And though the green leaves browned and 
 
 brown leaves died, 
 And dead leaves fell and cold November 
 
 came, 
 She was still splendid there, and still the 
 
 same. 
 
 " Then on a day she sailed ; but when she 
 
 went 
 My mind was clear on what I had to try ; 
 To see the sea and ships and what they 
 
 meant. 
 That was the thing I longed to do ; so I 
 Drew and worked hard and studied, and 
 
 put by, 
 
DAUBER 91 
 
 And thought of nothing else but that one 
 
 end, 
 But let all else go hang : love, money, friend. 
 
 "And now I've shipped as Dauber I've be- 
 gun. 
 
 It was hard work to find a dauber's berth. 
 
 I hadn't any friends to find me one; 
 
 Only my skill, for what it may be worth. 
 
 But I'm at sea now, going about the earth. 
 
 And when the ship's paid off, when we re- 
 turn, 
 
 I'll join some Paris studio and learn. 
 
 "I shan't be much too old to join a school. 
 I want to learn my craft; I want to 
 
 show 
 Father and sister that I'm not a fool. 
 And that the world has thought me wise 
 
 to go. 
 
92 DAUBER 
 
 It makes my heart ache thinking of them, 
 
 though, 
 For even if my painting made a blaze, 
 They'd tliink me sinner still; they would 
 
 not praise." 
 
 He stopped, the air came moist ; Si did not 
 
 speak ; 
 The Dauber turned his eyes to where he 
 
 sat. 
 Pressing the sail-room hinges with his 
 
 cheek. 
 His face half covered with a drooping 
 
 hat. 
 Huge dewdrops from the staysails dropped 
 
 and spat. 
 Si did not stir, the Dauber touched his 
 
 sleeve, 
 A httle birdlike noise came from a 
 
 sheave. 
 
DAUBER 93 
 
 Si was asleep, sleeping a calm, dead sleep ; 
 Still as a warden of the Egyptian dead. 
 In some old haunted temple buried deep 
 Under the desert sand sterile and red. 
 The Dauber shook his arm. Si jumped, 
 
 and said, 
 ''Good yarn, I swear. I say, you have a 
 
 brain ; 
 Was that eight bells that went?" he slept 
 
 again. 
 
 One bell was struck ; one bell. The watch 
 
 was called. 
 A match flared in the half-deck and went 
 
 out. 
 Forward, within the fo'c's'le, someone 
 
 bawled, 
 The reefer in the half -deck raised his shout. 
 Each sleeper slowly roused, blinked Uke a 
 
 lout. 
 
94 DAUBER 
 
 Cursed, fumbled for his pipe in sleep's 
 
 thick fog, 
 And then relapsed, dead heavy, like a log. 
 
 Si rubbed his eyes: ''I've had a nap," he 
 
 said. 
 ''Was that one bell? What, Dauber, you 
 
 still here?" 
 "Si, there," the mate's voice called from 
 
 overhead. 
 The order made the lad's thick vision 
 
 clear ; 
 A something in the mate's voice made 
 
 him fear. 
 "Si," said the mate, "I hear you've made 
 
 a friend ; 
 Dauber, in short. That friendship's got 
 
 to end. 
 
 "You're a young gentleman. Your place 
 aboard 
 
DAUBER 95 
 
 Is with the gentlemen, abaft the mast, 
 You're learning to command ; you can't 
 
 afford 
 To yarn with any man. But there . . . 
 
 It's past. 
 You've done it once ; let this time be the 
 
 last. 
 The Dauber's place is forward. Do it 
 
 again, 
 I'll put you bunking forward with the 
 
 men. 
 
 "Dismiss." Si went; but Sam, beside the 
 
 mate, 
 Time-keeper there, walked with him to the 
 
 rail 
 And whispered him the menace of "You 
 
 wait" ; 
 Words which have turned full many a reefer 
 
 pale. 
 
96 DAUBER 
 
 The watch was changed : the watch on deck 
 
 trimmed sail. 
 Sam, going below, called all the reefers 
 
 down. 
 Sat in his bunk, and eyed them with a 
 
 frown. 
 
 "Si, here," he said, "has spoiled the half- 
 
 deck's name, 
 Talking to Dauber — Dauber, the ship's 
 
 clout. 
 A reefer takes the Dauber for a flame ; 
 The half-deck take the roundhouse walking 
 
 out. 
 He's soiled the half-deck's honour. Now, 
 
 no doubt 
 The bosun and his mates will come here 
 
 sneaking. 
 Asking for smokes, or blocking gangways 
 
 speaking. 
 
DAUBER 97 
 
 "I'm not a vain man, given to blow or 
 
 boast ; 
 I'm not a proud man ; but I truly feel 
 That while I've bossed this mess and ruled 
 
 this roast 
 I've kept this hooker's half -deck damned 
 
 genteel. 
 Si must ask pardon, or be made to squeal. 
 Down on your knees, dog ; them we love we 
 
 chasten. 
 Joa, pasea, my son; in English, hasten." 
 
 Si begged for pardon, meekly kneeling down 
 Before the reefers' mess assembled grim. 
 The lamp above them smoked the glass all 
 
 brown ; 
 Beyond the door the dripping sails were 
 
 dim. 
 The Dauber passed the door ; none spoke to 
 
 him. 
 
98 DAUBER 
 
 He sought his berth and slept, or, waking, 
 
 heard 
 Rain on the deck-house ; rain, no other word. 
 
 IV 
 
 The glorious northers lasted from the 
 Trades. 
 
 They, too, were dropped, and still the ship 
 did shoulder 
 
 The brilliance of the water's white cockades 
 
 Into the milky green of smoky smoulder. 
 
 The sky grew bluer and the air grew colder ; 
 
 Southward she thundered while the northers 
 held. 
 
 Proud, with taut bridles, pawing, but com- 
 pelled. 
 
 And still the Dauber strove, though all men 
 mocked, 
 
DAUBER 99 
 
 To draw the splendour of the passing 
 
 thing ; 
 And deep inside his heart a something 
 
 locked, 
 Long pricking in him, now began to 
 
 sting 
 A fear of the disasters storm might bring. 
 His rank as painter would be ended then; 
 He would keep watch, and watch like other 
 
 men. 
 
 And go aloft high on the yellow yard, 
 When the great ship was rolling scuppers 
 
 under. 
 Burying her snout all round the compass 
 
 card, 
 While the green water struck at her and 
 
 stunned her; 
 When the lee-rigging slacked, when one 
 
 long thunder 
 
100 DAUBEB 
 
 Boomed from the black to windward, when 
 
 the sail 
 Booted and spurred the devil in the gale 
 
 For him to ride on men : that was the 
 
 time 
 The Dauber dreaded; then the test would 
 
 come, 
 When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks 
 
 with slime 
 And all the air was blind with flying 
 
 scum; 
 When the great sails were furled, when the 
 
 fierce hum 
 Of the weather rigging died in the great 
 
 roar 
 Of the southwester never tamed by shore. 
 
 He looked aloft. He had once worked aloft. 
 Shifting her suits one summer afternoon. 
 
DAUBER 101 
 
 In the bright Trade wind, when the wind 
 
 was soft, 
 Shaking the points, making the tackle 
 
 croon : 
 But that was child's play to the future; 
 
 soon 
 He would be ordered up when sails and 
 
 spars 
 Were flying and going mad among the 
 
 stars. 
 
 He had been afraid that first time ; daunted, 
 
 thrilled, 
 Not by the height so much as by the 
 
 size ; 
 And then the danger to the man unskilled 
 In standing on a rope that runs through 
 
 eyes. 
 ''But in a storm," he thought, "when the 
 
 yards rise 
 
102 DAUBER 
 
 And roll all down together, and snap their 
 
 gear ! " 
 The sweat came cold upon his palms for 
 
 fear. 
 
 Even ashore he had sometimes felt a pang, 
 Swinging below the house-eaves on a stage; 
 But stages carry rails : here he would hang 
 Upon a jerking rope in a storm's rage, 
 Ducked, that the sheltering oilskin might 
 
 assuage 
 The beating of the storm, clutching the jack, 
 Beating the sail and being beaten back. 
 
 Drenched, frozen, gasping, blinded, beaten 
 
 dumb. 
 High in the night, reeling great blinding 
 
 arcs 
 As the ship rolled, his chappy fingers numb, 
 The deck below a narrow blur of marks, 
 
DAUBER 103 
 
 The sea a welter of whiteness shot with 
 
 sparks 
 Now snapping up in bursts, now dying 
 
 away, 
 Salting the horizontal snow with spray. 
 
 A hundred and thirty feet above the deck, 
 And there, while the ship rolls, boldly to 
 
 sit 
 Upon a footrope moving, jerk and check. 
 While half-a-dozen seamen work on it. 
 Held by one hand, straining, by strength 
 
 and wit, 
 To toss a gasket's coil around the yard : 
 How could he compass that, when blowing 
 
 hard? 
 
 And if he failed in any least degree, 
 
 Or faltered for an instant, or showed slack. 
 
 He might go drown himself in the deep sea, 
 
104 DAUBER 
 
 And add seven bubbles to the clipper's 
 track. 
 
 He had signed his name ; there was no turn- 
 ing back, 
 
 No pardon for default ; this must be done. 
 
 One iron rule at sea binds everyone. 
 
 Till now he had been treated with con- 
 tempt, 
 As neither man nor thing : a creature borne 
 On the ship's articles but left exempt 
 From all the seamen's life except their 
 
 scorn. 
 But he would rank as seaman off the Horn ; 
 Work as a seaman, and be kept or cast 
 By standards set for men before the mast. 
 
 Even now they shifted suits of sails; they 
 
 bent 
 The storm-suit ready for the expected time. 
 
DAUBER 105 
 
 The mighty norther that the Plate had lent 
 Had brought them far into the wintry 
 
 clime. 
 At dawn, out of the shadow, there was rime ; 
 The dim Magellan clouds were frosty clear, 
 The wind had edge, the testing time was 
 
 near. 
 
 And then he wondered if the tales were lies 
 Told by old hands to terrify the new ; 
 For, since the ship left England, only twice 
 Had there been need to start a sheet or 
 
 clew; 
 Then only royals, for an hour or two, 
 And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold. 
 What were these gales of which the stories 
 
 told? 
 
 The thought went by. He had heard the 
 bosun tell 
 
106 BAUBER 
 
 Too often and too fiercely not to know 
 That being off the Horn in June is hell; 
 Hell of continual toil in ice and snow, 
 Wet through for weeks, hearing the wester 
 
 blow, 
 Blow — shriek aloud for weeks. Hear 
 
 without check 
 The thunder of green seas bursting white 
 
 on deck. 
 
 Such was the weather he might look to 
 
 find. 
 Such was the work expected : there re- 
 mained 
 Firmly to set his teeth, resolve his mind. 
 And be the first, however much it pained. 
 And bring his honour round the Horn un- 
 stained 
 And win his mates' respect, and thence, 
 untainted. 
 
DAUBER 107 
 
 Be ranked as man, however much he 
 painted. 
 
 He drew deep breath; a ganthne swayed 
 
 aloft 
 A new lower topsail hard with rope and 
 
 leather, 
 Such as men's frozen fingers fight with oft 
 Below the Ramirez in Cape Horn weather, 
 The arms upon the yard hove all together. 
 Lighting the head along; a thought oc- 
 curred 
 Within the Painter's brain like a bright 
 bird. 
 
 That this, and so much like it, of man's 
 
 toil 
 Compassed by naked manhood in strange 
 
 places, 
 Was all heroic, but outside the coil 
 
108 DAUBER 
 
 Within which modern art gleams or gri- 
 maces, 
 
 That if he drew that Une of sailors' faces 
 
 Sweating the sail, their passionate play and 
 change, 
 
 It would be new and wonderful and 
 strange. 
 
 That was what going aloft meant, it would 
 be 
 
 A training in new vision, a revealing 
 
 Of passionate men in battle with the 
 sea 
 
 High on an unseen stage shaking and reel- 
 ing, 
 
 And men through him would understand 
 their feeling 
 
 Their might, their misery, their tragic 
 power, 
 
 And all by suffering pain a little hour, 
 
DAUBER lOD 
 
 High on the yard with them, feehng their 
 
 pain, 
 BattUng with them ; and it had not been 
 
 done. 
 He was a door to new worlds in the 
 
 brain, 
 A window opening letting in the sun, 
 A voice saying, ''Thus is bread fetched and 
 
 ports won. 
 And life lived out at sea where men 
 
 exist 
 Solely by man's strong brain and sturdy 
 
 wrist." 
 
 Wonders of marvellous pictures touched his 
 
 thought ; 
 He would endure it all, endure and learn. 
 Sharing the life till every gleam was caught 
 In agony's bitter etchings that so burn. 
 Then months of training after his return, 
 
110 DAUBER 
 
 And then the dream fulfilled, the power to 
 
 show 
 All he had seen and had the power to know. 
 
 So he decided as he cleaned his brasses, 
 
 Heading without, aloft, the curse, the shout 
 
 Where the taut gantline passes and re- 
 passes 
 
 Heaving new topsails to be lighted out. 
 
 It was most proud, however self might 
 doubt, 
 
 To share man's tragic toil and paint it true. 
 
 He took the offered Fate : this he would do. 
 
 That night the snow fell between six and 
 
 seven, 
 A little feathery fall so light, so dry. 
 An aimless dust out of a confused heaven, 
 Upon an air no steadier than a sigh. 
 The powder dusted down and wandered by, 
 
DAUBER 111 
 
 So purposeless, so many, and so cold, 
 Then died and the wind ceased and the 
 ship rolled. 
 
 Rolled till she clanged, rolled till the brain 
 
 was tired 
 Marking the acme of the heaves, the pause, 
 While the sea-beauty rested and respired. 
 Drinking great draughts of roller at her 
 
 hawse. 
 Flutters of snow came aimless upon flaws. 
 ''Lock up your paints," the mate said, 
 
 speaking light, 
 ''This is the Horn; you'll join my watch 
 
 to-night." 
 
 V 
 
 All through the windless night the clipper 
 
 rolled 
 In a great swell with oily gradual heaves 
 
112 DAUBER 
 
 Which rolled her down until her time-bells 
 tolled 
 
 Clang, and the weltering water moaned like 
 beeves. 
 
 The thundering rattle of slatting shook the 
 sheaves, 
 
 Startles of water made the swing ports 
 gush. 
 
 The sea was moaning and sighing and say- 
 ing ''Hush!" 
 
 It was all black and starless. Peering 
 
 down 
 Into the water trying to pierce the gloom, 
 One saw a dim, smooth, oily glitter of 
 
 brown 
 Heaving and dying away and leaving room 
 For yet another. Like the march of doom 
 Came those great powers of marching 
 
 silences ; 
 
BA UBER 113 
 
 Then fog came down, dead cold, and hid 
 the seas. 
 
 They set the Dauber to the fog-horn. 
 
 There 
 He stood upon the poop, making to sound 
 Out of the pump the sailors' nasal blare, 
 Listening lest ice should make the note re- 
 sound. 
 She bayed there like a solitary hound 
 Lost in a covert, all the watch she bayed ; 
 The fog, come closelier down, no answer 
 made. 
 
 Denser it grew, until the ship was lost; 
 
 The elemental hid her, she was merged 
 
 In mufflings of dark death, like a man's 
 
 ghost 
 New to the change of death, yet thither 
 
 urged. 
 
114 DAUBER 
 
 Then from the hidden waters something 
 
 surged 
 Mournful; despairing, great, greater than 
 
 speech, 
 A noise hke one slow wave on a still beach. 
 
 Mournful, and then again, mournful, and 
 
 still 
 Out of the night that mighty voice arose. 
 The Dauber at his fog-horn felt the thrill : 
 Who rode that desolate sea? What forms 
 
 were those? 
 Mournful, from things defeated, in the 
 
 throes 
 Of memory of some conquered hunting 
 
 ground. 
 Out of the night of death arose the sound. 
 
 '' Whales," said the mate. They stayed 
 there all night long, 
 
DAUBER 115 
 
 Answering the horn, out of the night they 
 
 spoke, 
 Defeated creatures who had suffered wrong 
 But were still noble underneath the stroke. 
 They filled the darkness when the Dauber 
 
 woke; 
 The men came peering to the rail to hear 
 And the sea sighed and the fog rose up 
 
 sheer, 
 
 A wall of nothing at the world's last edge, 
 Where no Hfe came except defeated hfe. 
 The Dauber felt shut in within a hedge 
 Behind which form was hidden and thought 
 
 was rife. 
 And that a bhnding flash, a thrust, a knife. 
 Would sweep the hedge away and make all 
 
 plain. 
 Brilliant beyond all words, bhnding the 
 
 brain. 
 
116 DAUBER 
 
 So the night passed, but then no morning 
 
 broke, 
 Only a something showed that night was 
 
 dead, 
 A sea bird, caclding hke a devil, spoke. 
 And the fog drew away and hung like 
 
 lead: 
 Like mighty cliffs it shaped, sullen and 
 
 red. 
 Like glowering gods at watch it did 
 
 appear, 
 And sometimes drew away and then drew 
 
 near. 
 
 Like islands and like chasms and like hell, 
 But always mighty and red, gloomy and 
 
 ruddy. 
 Shutting the visible sea in like a well. 
 Slow-heaving in vast ripples blank and 
 
 muddy, 
 
DAUBER 117 
 
 Where the sun should have risen it streaked 
 
 bloody ; 
 The day was still-born ; all the sea-fowl 
 
 scattering 
 Splashed the still water, mewing, hovering, 
 
 clattering. 
 
 Then Polar snow came down little and light. 
 Till all the sky was hidden by the small. 
 Most multitudinous drift of dirty white 
 Tumbling and wavering down and covering 
 
 all, 
 Covering the sky, the sea, the clipper tall. 
 Furring the ropes with white, casing the 
 
 mast. 
 Coming on no known air, but blowing past. 
 
 And all the air seemed full of gradual moan, 
 As though in those cloud-chasms the horns 
 were blowing 
 
118 BA UBER 
 
 The mort for gods cast out and over- 
 thrown, 
 
 Or for the eyeless sun plucked out and 
 going. 
 
 Slow the slow gradual moan came in the 
 snowing, 
 
 The Dauber felt the prelude had begun. 
 
 The snowstorm fluttered by, he saw the 
 sun 
 
 Show and pass by, gleam from one towering 
 
 prism 
 Into another, vaster and more grim. 
 Which in dull crags of darkness had arisen 
 To muffle-to a final door on him; 
 The gods upon the dull crags lowered dim. 
 The pigeons chattered, quarrelling in the 
 
 track. 
 In the southwest the dimness dulled to 
 
 black. 
 
DAUBER 119 
 
 Then came the cry of: ''Call all hands on 
 
 deck." 
 The Dauber knew its meaning; it was 
 
 come : 
 Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck 
 And crumples steel and smites the strong 
 
 man dumb. 
 Down clattered flying kites and staysails : 
 
 some 
 Sang out in quick, high calls ; the fairleads 
 
 skirled, 
 And from the southwest came the end of 
 
 the world. 
 
 "Caught in her ball dress," said the bosun, 
 hauling. 
 
 "Lee-ay, lee-ay!" quick, high, came the 
 men's call. 
 
 It was all wallop of sails and startled call- 
 ing: 
 
120 DAUBER 
 
 ''Let fly," "Let go," ''Clue up," and "Let 
 go all," 
 
 "Now up and make them fast." "Here, 
 give us a haul," 
 
 "Now up and stow them. Quick! By- 
 God, we're done." 
 
 The blackness crunched all memory of the 
 sun. 
 
 ^'Up," said the mate. "Mizen topgallants. 
 
 Hurry !" 
 The Dauber ran, the others ran, the 
 
 sails 
 Slatted and shook; out of the black a 
 
 flurry, 
 Whirled in fine lines tattering the edge to 
 
 trails ; 
 Painting and art and England were old 
 
 tales 
 Told in some other life to that pale man 
 
BAUBER 121 
 
 Who struggled with white fear and gulped 
 and ran. 
 
 He struck a ringbolt in his haste and fell, 
 
 Rose, sick with pain, half-lamed in his left 
 knee 
 
 He reached the shrouds, where clambering 
 men pell-mell 
 
 Hustled each other up and cursed him ; he 
 
 Hurried aloft with them : then from the 
 sea 
 
 Came a cold, sudden breath that made the 
 hair 
 
 Stiff on the neck as though Death whis- 
 pered there. 
 
 A man below him punched him in the 
 
 side: 
 ''Get up you. Dauber, or let me get 
 
 past." 
 
122 DAUBER 
 
 He saw the belly of the skysail skied, 
 Gulped, and clutched tight, and tried to go 
 
 more fast; 
 Sometimes he missed his ratline and was 
 
 grassed. 
 Scraped his shin raw against the rigid line; 
 The clamberers reached the futtock-shrouds' 
 
 incUne. 
 
 Cursing they came; one, kicking out be- 
 hind 
 
 Kicked Dauber in the mouth, and one below 
 
 Punched at his calves; the futtock-shrouds 
 inclined — 
 
 It was a perilous path for one to go. 
 
 ''Up, Dauber, up !" a curse followed a blow; 
 
 He reached the top and gasped, then on, 
 then on. 
 
 And one voice yelled ''Let go!" and one 
 "All gone!" 
 
DAUBER 123 
 
 Fierce clamberers, some in oilskins, some in 
 
 rags, 
 Hustling and hurrying up, up the steep 
 
 stairs, 
 Before the windless sails were blown to flags 
 And whirled like dirty birds athwart great 
 
 airs, 
 Ten men in all, to get this mast of theirs 
 Snugged to the gale in time. ''Up, damn 
 
 you, run ! " 
 The mizen topmast head was safely won. 
 
 ''Lay out!" the bosun yelled: the Dauber 
 
 laid 
 Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and 
 
 feeling 
 Sick at the mighty space of air displayed 
 Below his feet, where mewing birds were 
 
 wheeling ; 
 A giddy fear was on him, he was reeling, 
 
124 DAUBER 
 
 He bit his lip half through, clutching the 
 
 jack; 
 A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his 
 
 back. 
 
 The yard shook to men's feet, a brace was 
 
 loose, 
 He felt that he would fall, he bent, he 
 
 bent, 
 Clammy with natural terror to the 
 
 shoes, 
 While idiotic promptings came and went. 
 Then the great soul of his serene intent 
 Came winging warm upon him, like new 
 
 blood. 
 Tingling each nerve, making each channel 
 
 good. 
 
 To unknown strength, the shock passed, he 
 could look 
 
DAUBER 125 
 
 Forward, where, on the main, the skysail 
 
 high, 
 Though now half smothered, kicked aloft 
 
 and shook 
 Over the straining heads of Sam and Si. 
 A whirl of pellets of little snow drove by. 
 He saw the water darken. Someone yelled : 
 ''Frap it! don't stay to furl. Hold on!" 
 
 He held. 
 
 Darkness came down, half darkness, in a 
 
 whirl ; 
 The sky went out, the waters disappeared. 
 He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl 
 The ship upon her side; the darkness 
 
 speared 
 At her with wind, she staggered, she 
 
 careered, 
 Then down she lay, the Dauber felt her 
 
 go, 
 
126 DAUBER 
 
 He saw his yard tilt downwards ; then the 
 snow 
 
 Whirled all about, dense, multitudinous, 
 
 cold. 
 Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust 
 
 and shriek 
 Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, 
 
 took hold. 
 Flattening the flying drift against the cheek. 
 The yards buckled and bent, man could not 
 
 speak; 
 The ship lay on her side and the wind's 
 
 sound 
 Had devilish malice at having got her 
 
 downed. 
 
 At the first shock of falling Dauber's feet 
 Slid on the rope ; he slid, gripping the jack. 
 Till one foot jammed against an iron sheet. 
 
BAUBEB 127 
 
 And the iron cap of the topmast propped 
 
 his back, 
 Then passed a minute of roaring, whirling 
 
 black. 
 His mate upon the yard yelled in his ear 
 ''Sail. Cut away. Cut rags." He could 
 
 not hear. 
 
 "Cut!" yelled his mate; he looked, the 
 
 sail was gone, 
 Blown into rags in the first furious squall. 
 The tatters drummed the devil's tattoo ; on 
 The buckhng yard a block thumped like 
 
 a mall. 
 The ship lay, the sea smote her, the wind's 
 
 bawl 
 Came 'Loo, 'Loo, 'Loo; the Devil cried 
 
 his hounds 
 On to the poor spent stag strayed in his 
 
 bounds. 
 
128 BAUBER 
 
 ''Cut! Ease her!" yelled his mate; the 
 
 Dauber heard. 
 His mate wormed up the tilted yard and 
 
 slashed, 
 A rag of canvas skimmed like a darting 
 
 bird. 
 The snow whirled, the ship bowed to it, 
 
 the gear lashed ; 
 The Dauber left his perch, his sheath 
 
 knife flashed. 
 His numb hand hacked with it, to clear the 
 
 strips : 
 The flying ice was salt upon his lips. 
 
 The ice was caking on his oilskins ; cold 
 Struck to his marrow, beat upon him, 
 
 stung. 
 The chill palsied his blood, it made him old ; 
 The frosty scatter of death was being flung. 
 And still the ship lay over, still he clung, 
 
DAUBER 129 
 
 Tatters of shouts were flung, the rags of 
 
 yells 
 And clang, clang, clang, below beat the two 
 
 bells. 
 
 Numb with the agony of the cold, he 
 
 looked 
 Above him at the royal ; there he saw 
 The bony finger of the lean spar crooked, 
 Bending to leeward like a clutching claw. 
 The mast's heel, working, ground its fid- 
 hole raw, 
 Royal and skysail beat in tatters : boys 
 Hacked at the rags, and ^'slat, slat, slat," 
 the noise 
 
 Of their frayed, flapping trouser-ends beat, 
 
 beat. 
 Beat in the wind, and still they hacked ; 
 
 and he 
 
 K 
 
130 DAUBER 
 
 Hacked on the jerking yard half off his 
 
 feet, 
 Cutting the scattering rags and tatters free. 
 They tied themselves in knots, they had 
 
 such glee 
 To kick away their masters and to lose 
 The iron bonds of their constraining clews. 
 
 They cleared the weather-yard. ''Now!" 
 
 yelled his mate, 
 "Go down to leeward and cut away the 
 
 rest." 
 Slide down the tilted pole, wrestle with 
 
 fate. 
 Held by the oilskin buttons on his chest, 
 The Dauber's turn was come : he did his 
 
 best. 
 Slid down and cut away. He felt his foot 
 Plucked from below; the bosun shook his 
 
 boot. 
 
DAUBER 131 
 
 ''Leave that," the bosun shouted. ''Cro- 
 
 jick save." 
 The sphtting crojick, not yet gone to 
 
 rags, 
 Thundered below, beating till something 
 
 gave. 
 Bellying between its buntlines into bags. 
 Some birds were blown past shrieking : 
 
 dark, like shags, 
 Their backs seemed, looking down. "'Leu, 
 
 'Leu ! " they cried. 
 The ship lay, the seas thumped her, she had 
 
 died. 
 
 They reached the crojick yard, which 
 
 buckled, buckled 
 Like a thin whalebone to the topsail's 
 
 strain ; 
 They laid upon the yard and heaved and 
 
 knuckled. 
 
132 DAUBER 
 
 Pounding the sail, which jangled and leapt 
 
 again. 
 It was quite hard with ice, its rope like 
 
 chain, 
 Its strength like seven devils, it shook the 
 
 mast ; 
 They cursed and toiled and froze : a long 
 
 time passed. 
 
 Two hours passed, then a dim lightening 
 
 came. 
 Those frozen ones upon the yard could see 
 The mainsail and the foresail still the 
 
 same, 
 Still battling with the hands and blowing 
 
 free, 
 Rags blew where kites and staysails used 
 
 to be; 
 The lower topsails stood; the ship's lea 
 
 deck 
 
DAUBER 133 
 
 Creamed with four feet of water filled with 
 wreck. 
 
 An hour more went by ; the Dauber lost 
 All sense of hands and feet, all sense of all 
 But of a wind that cut him to the ghost 
 And of a frozen fold he had to haul, 
 Of heavens that fell and never ceased to 
 
 fall 
 And ran in smoky snatches along the sea, 
 Leaping from crest to wave-crest, yelling: 
 
 he 
 
 Lost sense of time, no bells went, but he 
 
 felt 
 Ages go over him. At last, at last 
 They frapped the cringled crojick's icy 
 
 pelt; 
 In frozen bulge and bunt they made it fast. 
 Then, scarcely live, they laid in to the mast. 
 
134 DAUBER 
 
 The captain's Speaking trumpet gave a 
 
 blare : 
 "Make fast the topsail, Mister, while you're 
 
 there." 
 
 Some seamen cursed, but up they had to 
 
 go, 
 Up to the topsail yard to spend an hour 
 Stowing a topsail in a blinding snow 
 Which made the strongest man among 
 
 them cower. 
 More men came up, the fresh hands gave 
 
 them power. 
 They stowed the sail; then with a rattle 
 
 of chain 
 One half the crojick burst its bonds again. 
 
 They stowed the sail, frapping it round 
 
 with rope, 
 Leaving no surface for the wind, no fold ; 
 
DAUBER 135 
 
 Then down the weather shrouds, half dead, 
 
 they grope. 
 That struggle with the sail had made them 
 
 old; 
 They wondered if the crojick furl would 
 
 hold. 
 ''Lucky," said one, ''she didn't lose a 
 
 spar." 
 ''Lucky," the bosun said, "lucky? We 
 
 are. 
 
 "She came within two shakes of turning 
 
 top. 
 Or stripping all her shroud screws, that 
 
 first quiff. 
 Now, fish those wash-deck buckets out of 
 
 the slop. 
 Here's Dauber says he doesn't like Cape 
 
 Stiff. 
 This isn't wind, man, this is only a whiff. 
 
136 DAUBER 
 
 Hold on, all hands ; hold on ! " a sea, half- 
 seen 
 
 Paused, mounted, burst and filled the main 
 deck green. 
 
 The Dauber felt a mountain of water fall. 
 It covered him deep, deep, he felt it fill 
 Over his head, the deck, the fife-rails all, 
 Quieting the ship, she trembled and lay 
 
 still. 
 Then with a rush and shatter and clanging 
 
 shrill, 
 Over she went ; he saw the water cream 
 Over the bitts; he saw the half-deck 
 
 stream. 
 
 Then in the rush he swirled, over she 
 went, 
 
 Her lee rail dipped, he struck, and some- 
 thing gave. 
 
DA UBER 137 
 
 His legs went through a port as the roll 
 
 spent ; 
 She paused, then rolled, and back the water 
 
 drave, 
 He drifted with it as a part of the wave ; 
 Half-drowned, half-stunned, exhausted, 
 
 partly frozen, 
 He struck the booby hatchway; then the 
 
 bosun 
 
 Leaped, seeing his chance, before the next 
 
 sea burst 
 And caught him as he drifted, seized him, 
 
 held, 
 Up-ended him against the bitts and cursed. 
 ''This ain't the George's Swimming Baths," 
 
 he yelled, 
 ''Keep on your feet," another gray-back 
 
 felled 
 The two together, and the bose, half-blind, 
 
138 DA USEE 
 
 Spat: ''One's a joke," he cursed, ''but 
 two's unkind." 
 
 "Now, damn it, Dauber," said the mate, 
 "look out. 
 
 Or you'll be over the side." The water 
 freed, 
 
 Each clanging freeing-port became a 
 spout. 
 
 The men cleared up the decks, as there 
 was need ; 
 
 The Dauber coiled up with them, feehng 
 bleed 
 
 His head into his oilskins; the sky glow- 
 ered. 
 
 The wind shrieked, and the mile-long gray- 
 backs towered. 
 
 It was fast darkening, but the ship was 
 saved, 
 
BAUBEE 139 
 
 She was snugged down, though fourteen 
 
 sails were spht. 
 Out of the dark a fiercer fury raved : 
 The gray-backs died and mounted, each 
 
 crest ht 
 With a white toppHng gleam that hissed 
 
 from it 
 And sUd, or leaped, or ran with whirls of 
 
 cloud, 
 Mad with inhuman life that shrieked 
 
 aloud. 
 
 The watch was called : Dauber might go 
 
 below. 
 ''Splice the main brace," the mate called; 
 
 all laid aft 
 To get a gulp of momentary glow 
 As some reward for having saved the craft. 
 The steward ladled mugs from which each 
 
 quaffed 
 
140 DAUBEB 
 
 Whisky, with water, sugar and Ume juice, 
 
 hot, 
 A quarter of a pint each made the tot. 
 
 Beside the lamp-room door the steward 
 
 stood 
 LadHng it out, and each man came in turn, 
 Tipped his sou'wester, drank it, grunted 
 
 ''Good," 
 And shambled forward, letting it slowly 
 
 burn. 
 When all were gone the Dauber lagged 
 
 astern, 
 Torn by his frozen body's lust for heat, 
 The liquor's pleasant smell, so warm, so 
 
 sweet, 
 
 And by a promise long-since made at 
 
 home 
 Never to taste strong liquor; now he knew 
 
DAUBER 141 
 
 The worth of Hquor, now he wanted some; 
 His frozen body urged him to the brew. 
 Yet it seemed wrong, an evil thing to do 
 To break that promise. ''Dauber," said 
 
 the mate, 
 ''Drink and turn in, man; why the hell 
 
 d'ye wait?" 
 
 '' Please, sir, I'm temperance." ''Temper- 
 ance are you, hey? 
 
 That's all the more for me; so you're for 
 slops ? 
 
 I thought you'd had enough slops for to- 
 day. 
 
 Go to your bunk and ease her when she 
 drops. 
 
 And . . . dammy, steward, you brew with 
 too much hops. . . . 
 
 Stir up the sugar, man . . . and tell your 
 girl 
 
142 DAUBER 
 
 How kind the mate was teaching you to 
 furl." 
 
 Then the mate drank the remnants, six 
 men's share, 
 
 And ramped into his cabin, where he 
 stripped 
 
 And danced unclad and was uproarious 
 there. 
 
 In waltzes with the cabin-cat he tripped. 
 
 Singing in tenor clear that he was pipped. 
 
 That "he who strove the tempest to dis- 
 arm 
 
 Must never first embrail the lee yard- 
 arm," 
 
 And that his name was Ginger. Dauber 
 
 crept 
 Back to the roundhouse, gripping by the 
 
 rail. 
 
DAUBER 143 
 
 The wind howled by, the passionate water 
 
 leapt, 
 The night was all one roaring with the 
 
 gale. 
 Then at the door he stopped, uttering a 
 
 wail. 
 His hands were perished numb and blue as 
 
 veins, 
 He could not turn the knob for both the 
 
 Spains. 
 
 A hand came shuffling aft, dodging the 
 
 seas. 
 Singing ''Her nut brown hair" between 
 
 his teeth, 
 Taking the ocean's tumult at his ease. 
 Even when the wash about his thighs did 
 
 seethe. 
 His soul was happy in its happy 
 
 sheath : 
 
144 DAUBER 
 
 ''What, Dauber, won't it open? Fingers 
 
 cold? 
 You'll talk of this time. Dauber, when 
 
 you're old." 
 
 He flung the door half-open, and a sea 
 
 Washed them both in, over the splash- 
 board, down. 
 
 ''You silly salt miscarriage," spluttered he. 
 
 "Dauber, pull out the plug before we 
 drown. 
 
 That's spoiled my laces and my velvet 
 gown. 
 
 Where is the plug?" groping in pitch dark 
 water 
 
 He sang between his teeth "The farmer's 
 daughter." 
 
 It was pitch dark within there, at each 
 roll 
 
DAUBER 145 
 
 The chests shd to the slant, the water 
 
 rushed, 
 Making full many a clanging tin pan bowl 
 Into the black below-bunks as it gushed. 
 The dog-tired men slept through it, they 
 
 were hushed. 
 The water drained, and then with matches 
 
 damp 
 The man struck heads off till he lit the 
 
 lamp. 
 
 "Thank you," the Dauber said; the seaman 
 
 grinned. 
 ''This is your first foul weather?" "Yes." 
 
 "I thought 
 Up on the yard you hadn't seen much wind. 
 Them's rotten sea boots. Dauber, that you 
 
 brought. 
 
 Now I must cut on deck before I'm 
 
 caught." 
 li 
 
146 DA ITBER 
 
 He went, the lamp-flame smoked, he 
 
 slammed the door; 
 A film of water loitered across the floor. 
 
 The Dauber watched it come, and watched 
 
 it go. 
 He had had a revelation of the lies 
 Cloaking the truth men never choose to know ; 
 He could bear witness now and cleanse their 
 
 eyes. 
 He had beheld in suffering, he was wise. 
 This was the sea, this searcher of the soul, 
 This never-dying shriek fresh from the 
 
 Pole. 
 
 He shook with cold, his hands could not 
 
 undo 
 His oilskin buttons, so he shook and sat 
 Watching his dirty fingers, dirty blue, 
 Hearing without the hammering tackle slat. 
 
DAUBER 147 
 
 Within, the drops from dripping clothes 
 
 went pat, 
 Running in Httle patters, gentle, sweet. 
 And "Ai, Ai," went the wind, and the seas 
 
 beat. 
 
 His bunk was sopping wet, he clambered 
 
 in. 
 None of his clothes were dry: his fear re- 
 curred. 
 Cramps bunched the muscles underneath 
 
 his skin, 
 The great ship rolled until the lamp was 
 
 blurred. 
 He took his Bible and tried to read a 
 
 word, 
 Trembled at going aloft again, and 
 
 then 
 Resolved to fight it out and show it to 
 
 men. 
 
148 DAUBER 
 
 Faces recurred, fierce memories of the yard, 
 The look of the sail, the savage eyes, the 
 
 jests, 
 The oaths of one great seaman, syphiUs- 
 
 scarred, 
 The tug of the leeches janmied beneath 
 
 their chests. 
 The buntlines bellying bunts out into 
 
 breasts. 
 The deck so desolate-grey, the sky so wild. 
 He fell asleep and slept like a young child. 
 
 But not for long : the cold awoke him soon. 
 The hot-ache and the skin-cracks and the 
 
 cramp. 
 The seas thundering without, the gale's 
 
 wild tune, 
 The sopping misery of the blankets damp : 
 A speaking-trumpet roared, a seaboot's 
 
 stamp 
 
DAUBER 149 
 
 Clogged at the door, a man entered to shout, 
 ''All hands on deck ! Arouse here ! Tumble 
 out!" 
 
 The caller raised the lamp ; his oilskins 
 
 clicked 
 As the thin ice upon them cracked and fell. 
 "Rouse out," he said. ''This lamp is 
 
 frozen wicked. 
 Rouse out," his accent deepened to a yell. 
 "We're among ice; it's blowing up like 
 
 hell; 
 We're going to hand both topsails. Time, 
 
 I guess, 
 We're sheeted up. Rouse out. Don't stay 
 
 to dress." 
 
 "Is it cold on deck?" said Dauber. "Is 
 
 it cold? 
 We're sheeted up, I tell you, inches thick; 
 
150 DAUBER 
 
 The fo'c's'le's like a wedding-cake, I'm told ; 
 Now tumble out, my sons; on deck here; 
 
 quick. 
 Rouse out, away, and come and climb the 
 
 stick : 
 I'm going to call the half-deck. Bosun. 
 
 Hey. 
 Both topsails coming in. Heave out. 
 
 Away." 
 
 He went ; the Dauber tumbled from his 
 
 bunk, 
 Clutching the side; he heard the wind go 
 
 past. 
 Making the great ship wallow as if drunk. 
 There was a shocking tumult up the mast. 
 ''This is the end," he muttered, ''come at 
 
 last ; 
 I've got to go aloft, facing this cold. 
 I can't. I can't. I'll never keep my hold. 
 
DAUBER 151 
 
 ''I cannot face the topsail yard again. 
 
 I never guessed what misery it would 
 
 be." 
 The cramps and hot-ache made him sick 
 
 with pain. 
 The ship stopped suddenly from a devilish 
 
 sea^ ' 
 
 Then with a triumph of wash, a rush of 
 
 glee, 
 The door burst in, and in the water rolled, 
 Filling the lower bunks, black, creaming, 
 
 cold. 
 
 The lamp sucked out, ''wash" went the 
 
 water back. 
 Then in again, flooding; the bosun swore. 
 ''You useless thing, you Dauber, you lee 
 
 slack. 
 Get out, you heekapoota; shut the door. 
 You coo-ilyaira, what are you waiting for? 
 
152 DAUBER 
 
 Out of my way, you thing, you useless 
 
 thing." 
 He slammed the door indignant, clanging 
 
 the ring. 
 
 And then he lit the lamp, drowned to the 
 
 waist. 
 ''Here's a fine house. Get at the scupper 
 
 holes." 
 He bent against it as the water raced. 
 ''And pull them out to leeward when she 
 
 rolls ; 
 They say some kinds of landsmen don't 
 
 have souls. 
 I well believe. A Port Mahon baboon 
 Would make more soul than you got with 
 
 a spoon." 
 
 Down in the icy water Dauber groped 
 To find the plug; the racing water sluiced 
 
DAUBER 153 
 
 Over his head and shoulders as she sloped. 
 Without, judged by the sound, all hell was 
 
 loosed. 
 He felt cold Death about him tightly noosed, 
 That Death was better than the misery 
 
 there. 
 Iced on the quaking foothold high in air. 
 
 And then the thought came : ''I'm a failure. 
 All 
 
 My life has been a failure : they were right. 
 
 It will not matter if I go and fall; 
 
 I should be free, then, from this hell's de- 
 light. 
 
 I'll never paint. Best let it end to-night. 
 
 I'll slip over the side. I've tried and failed." 
 
 So, in the ice-cold, in the night, he quailed. 
 
 Death would be better. Death, than this 
 long hell 
 
154 DAUBER 
 
 Of mockery and surrender and dismay, 
 This long defeat of doing nothing well, 
 Playing the part too high for him to play. 
 ''0 Death, who hides the sorry thing away, 
 Take me, I've failed. I cannot play these 
 
 cards." 
 There came a thundering from the topsail 
 
 yards. 
 
 And then he bit his lips, clenching his 
 
 mind, 
 And staggered out to muster, beating back 
 The coward frozen self of him that 
 
 whined. 
 Come what cards might, he meant to play 
 
 the pack. 
 ''Ai !" screamed the wind, the topsail sheets 
 
 went clack. 
 Ice filled the air with spikes, the gray-backs 
 
 burst. 
 
DA UBEB 155 
 
 ''Here's Dauber," said the mate, "on deck 
 the first. 
 
 "Why, holy sailor, Dauber, you're a man; 
 I took you for a soldier; up now, come." 
 Up on the yards already they began 
 That battle with a gale which strikes men 
 
 dumb. 
 The leaping topsail thundered like a drum, 
 The frozen snow beat in the face like shots. 
 The wind spun whipping wave-crests into 
 
 clots. 
 
 So up, upon the topsail yard again, 
 In the great tempest's fiercest hour, began 
 Probation to the Dauber's soul of pain 
 Which crowds a century's torment in a 
 
 span. 
 For the next month the ocean taught this 
 
 man, 
 
156 DAUBER 
 
 And he, in that month's torment, while she 
 
 wested. 
 Was never warm, nor dry, nor full, nor 
 
 rested. 
 
 But still it blew, or, if it lulled, it rose 
 Within the hour and blew again ; and still 
 The water as it burst aboard her froze. 
 The wind blew off an ice-field, raw and 
 
 chill. 
 Daunting man's body, tampering with his 
 
 will ; 
 But after thirty days a ghostly sun 
 Gave sickly promise that the storms were 
 
 done. 
 
 VI 
 
 A great grey sea was running up the sky; 
 Desolate birds flew past, their mewings came 
 As that lone water's spiritual cry, 
 
DA UBER 157 
 
 Its forlorn voice, its essence, its soul's name. 
 The ship limped in the water as if lame. 
 Then in the forenoon watch to a great shout 
 More sail was made, the reefs were shaken 
 out, 
 
 A slant came from the south; the singers 
 
 stood 
 Clapped to the halliards, hauling to a tune, 
 Old as the sea, a fillip to the blood. 
 While the upper topsail rose like a balloon. 
 ''So long, Cape Stiff. In Valparaiso soon," 
 Said one to other as the ship lay over. 
 Making her course again, again a rover. 
 
 All felt Cape Horn was ended, all men's 
 
 hearts 
 Lightened, and all men sang, so fair, so sweet 
 Showed the half sunny heaven, blue in parts. 
 After the month-long drive of Polar sheets; 
 
158 DAUBER 
 
 They sang ''King Louis," hauling aft the 
 
 sheets ; 
 Fo'c's'le and half-deck sang, the ship was 
 
 ringing 
 With snatches of old songs and seamen 
 
 singing. 
 
 Slowly the sea went down as the wind 
 dropped ; 
 
 Clear rang the songs, "Hurrah, Cape Horn 
 is bet." 
 
 And some hung clothes to dry and others 
 mopped 
 
 The filthy deckings, slimp with long wet, 
 
 Where, mouldered over, tattered, gone to 
 fret, 
 
 Old clothes appeared, old, drowned, forgotten 
 things. 
 
 Washed under bunks and soaked to ravel- 
 lings. 
 
DA UBER 159 
 
 The Dauber, scrubbing out the roundhouse, 
 
 found 
 Old pantiles gone to pulp, old clouts, old 
 
 gear 
 In the below-bunks blackness long since 
 
 drowned 
 During the agony of the Cape Horn year. 
 He sang in scrubbing, for he had done with 
 
 fear; 
 He had endured the worst, he had passed 
 
 through ; 
 He thought of all the pictures he would do 
 
 On the immense scale of the sailor's stage : 
 The yard, the ship, the sea, the power of 
 
 man 
 Matched against chaos in elemental rage, 
 The way of the wind upon the waters wan. 
 The pelting off the Horn had given him 
 
 tan, 
 
160 DAUBER 
 
 Brightened his eyes and plumped him, arms 
 
 and face ; 
 He had got manhood at the testing place. 
 
 Singing he scrubbed, passing his watch 
 
 below, 
 Making the roundhouse fair; the bosun 
 
 watched. 
 Bringing his knitting slowly to the toe ; 
 Sails stretched a mizen skysail which he 
 
 patched ; 
 They thought the Dauber was a bad egg 
 
 hatched. 
 ''Daubs," said the bosun cheerly, "can 
 
 you knit? 
 I've made a Barney's bull of this last bit." 
 
 Then, while the Dauber counted, bosun took 
 Some marline from his pocket. "Here," he 
 said, 
 
DAUBER 161 
 
 "You want to know square sennit? So 
 
 fash. Look. 
 Eight foxes take, and stop the ends with 
 
 thread ; 
 I've known an engineer would give his head 
 To know square sennit." As the boss 
 
 began 
 The Dauber felt promoted into man. 
 
 It was his warrant that he had not failed, 
 That the most hard peak in his difficult 
 
 climb 
 Had not been past attainment; it was 
 
 scaled, 
 In spite of perilous ways and slippery 
 
 slime. 
 He had emerged out of the iron time 
 And knew that he could compass his life's 
 
 scheme ; 
 He had the power sufficient to his dream. 
 
162 DAUBER 
 
 Then dinner came, and now the sky was 
 
 blue. 
 The ship was standing north, the Horn was 
 
 rounded ; 
 She made a thundering as she weltered 
 
 through. 
 The mighty gray-backs glittered as she 
 
 bounded. 
 More sail was piled upon her : she was 
 
 hounded 
 North, while the wind came ; like a stag she 
 
 ran 
 Over grey hills and hollows of seas wan. 
 
 She had a white bone in her mouth : she 
 
 sped; 
 Those in the roundhouse watched her as 
 
 they ate 
 Their meal of pork-fat fried with broken 
 
 bread ; 
 
DAUBER 163 
 
 ''Good old," they cried, ''she's off, she's 
 
 gathering gait." 
 Her track was whitening Uke a Lammas 
 
 spate. 
 "Good old," they cried, "oh, give her cloth. 
 
 Hurray 
 For three weeks more to Valparaiso Bay." 
 
 "She smells old ValHpo," the bosun cried, 
 "We'll be inside the tier in three weeks 
 
 more. 
 Lying at double-moorings where they ride 
 Off of the Market, half a mile from shore, 
 And bumboat pan, my sons, and figs galore, 
 And girls in black mantillas fit to make a 
 Poor seaman frantic when they dance the 
 
 cueca. 
 
 "Now, Daubs, stand by to smart her up 
 for port. 
 
164 DAUBEE 
 
 Rouse out your paints, this clipper needs 
 some brightening. 
 
 No afternoons below now days are short, 
 
 But all hands holystoning her and whiten- 
 ing 
 
 And making all her brass as bright as light- 
 ning. 
 
 She's a crack ship, this hooker; smartened 
 up, 
 
 She'll queen the tier and win the Consul's 
 cup." 
 
 Eight bells were made, the watch was 
 
 changed, and now 
 The mate spoke to the Dauber, "This is 
 
 better. 
 We'll soon be getting mudhooks over the 
 
 bow. 
 She'll make her passage still if this'U let 
 
 her. 
 
DAUBER 165 
 
 O, run, you drogher, dip your fo'c's'le 
 
 wetter. 
 Well, Dauber, this is better than Cape 
 
 Horn. 
 Them topsails made you wish you'd not 
 
 been born." 
 
 "Yes, sir," the Dauber said. ''Now," said 
 the mate, 
 
 ''We've got to smart her up. Them Cape 
 Horn seas 
 
 Have made her paintwork like a rusty grate. 
 
 O, didn't them topsails make your fish- 
 hooks freeze? 
 
 A topsail don't pay heed to 'won't you, 
 please ? ' 
 
 Well. And you've seen Cape Horn, Dauber ; 
 you've learned. 
 
 You've dipped your hand and had your 
 fingers burned. 
 
166 DAUBER 
 
 "And now you'll stow that folly, trying to 
 
 paint ; 
 You've had your lesson ; you're a sailor, 
 
 now. 
 You come on board a woman ready to 
 
 faint. 
 All sorts of slush you'd learned, the Lord 
 
 knows how. 
 Well, Cape Horn's sent you wisdom over 
 
 the bow. 
 If you've got sense to take it. You're a 
 
 sailor. 
 My God, before, you were a woman's 
 
 tailor. 
 
 " So throw your paints to blazes and have 
 
 done. 
 Words can't describe the silly things you 
 
 did. 
 Sitting before your easel in the sun, 
 
BAUBEB 167 
 
 With all your colours on the paint-box 
 
 Hd. 
 I blushed for you . . . and then the daubs 
 
 you hid. 
 My God ! you'll have more sense now, eh ? 
 
 You've quit?" 
 ''No, sir." ''You've not?" "No, su-." 
 
 "God give you wit. 
 
 "I thought you'd come to wisdom." 
 
 Thus they talked 
 While the great clipper took her bit and 
 
 rushed 
 Like a skin-glistening stallion not yet 
 
 baulked, 
 Till fire-bright water at her swingports 
 
 gushed ; 
 Poising and bowing down her forefoot 
 
 crushed 
 Bubble on glittering bubble; on she went. 
 
1G8 DAUBER 
 
 The Dauber watched her, wondering what 
 it meant 
 
 To come, after long months, at rosy dawn, 
 Into the placid blue of some great bay. 
 Treading the quiet water like a fawn 
 Ere yet the morning haze was blown away, 
 A rose-flushed figure putting aside the 
 
 grey, 
 And anchoring there before the city smoke 
 Rose, or the church-bells rang, or men 
 
 awoke. 
 
 And then, in the first Hght, to see grow 
 clear 
 
 That long-expected haven filled with 
 strangers. 
 
 Alive with men and women ; see and hear 
 
 Its clattering market and its money- 
 changers ; 
 
DAUBER 169 
 
 And hear the surf beat, and be free from 
 
 dangers, 
 And watch the crinkled ocean blue with 
 
 calm 
 Drowsing beneath the Trade, beneath the 
 
 palm. 
 
 Hungry for that he worked; the hour went 
 
 by 
 
 And still the wind grew, still the clipper 
 
 strode ; 
 And now a darkness hid the western 
 
 sky. 
 And sprays came flicking off at the wind's 
 
 goad. 
 She stumbled now, feeling her sail a load. 
 The mate gazed hard to windward, eyed his 
 
 sail, 
 And said the Horn was going to flick her 
 
 tail. 
 
170 DAUBER 
 
 Boldly he kept it on her till she staggered, 
 
 But still the wind increased ; it grew, it 
 grew. 
 
 Darkening the sky, making the water hag- 
 gard ; 
 
 Full of small snow the mighty wester blew. 
 
 "More fun for little fish-hooks," sighed the 
 crew. 
 
 They eyed the taut topgallants stiff like 
 steel ; 
 
 A second hand was ordered to the wheel. 
 
 The captain eyed her aft, sucking his lip, 
 FeeUng the sail too much, but yet refrain- 
 ing 
 From putting hobbles on the leaping ship. 
 The glad sea-shattering stallion, halter 
 
 straining, 
 Wind-musical, uproarious and complaining : 
 But, in a gust, he cocked his finger, so: 
 
DAUBER 171 
 
 ''You'd better take them off, before they 
 go." 
 
 All saw. They ran at once without the 
 
 word. 
 ''Leeay, Leeay ! " loud rang the clewHne 
 
 cries. 
 Sam in his bunk within the half-deck 
 
 heard, 
 Stirred in his sleep and rubbed his drowsy 
 
 eyes. 
 ''There go the lower to 'gallants." Against 
 
 the skies 
 Rose the thin bellying strips of leaping sail. 
 The Dauber was the first man over the 
 
 rail. 
 
 Three to a mast they ran; it was a race. 
 "God," said the mate, "that Dauber, he 
 can go." 
 
172 DAUBER 
 
 He watched the runners with an upturned 
 
 face, 
 Over the futtocks strugghng heel to toe, 
 Up to the topmast cross trees into the 
 
 blow, 
 Where the three sails were leaping. 
 
 ''Dauber wins." 
 The yards were reached and now the race 
 
 begins. 
 
 Which three will furl their sail first and 
 
 come down? 
 Out to the yard-arm for the leech goes one, 
 His hair blowing flagwise from a hatless 
 
 crown. 
 His hands at work hke fever to be done. 
 Out of the gale a fiercer fury spun. 
 The three sails leaped together, yanking 
 
 high. 
 Like talons darting up to clutch the sky. 
 
DAUBER 173 
 
 The Dauber on the fore topgallant yard 
 Was at the weather-arm; he was the first 
 To wrestle with the canvas bellying hard, 
 Bulged by the shrieking wester's bitter 
 
 burst. 
 He got his leech in, while a comrade cursed 
 The lead of the buntlines and, with oaths, 
 
 observed : 
 ''The eye of the outer jib-stay isn't served." 
 
 "No?" said the Dauber. ''No," the man 
 replied. 
 
 They heaved, stowing the sail, not looking 
 round. 
 
 Panting, but full of life and eager-eyed ; 
 
 The gale roared at them with its iron sound. 
 
 "That's you," the Dauber said. His gas- 
 ket wound 
 
 Swift round the yard, binding the sail in 
 bands. 
 
174 DAUBEB 
 
 There came a gust, the sail leaped from his 
 hands 
 
 So that he saw it high above him, grey. 
 And there his mate was falling; quick he 
 
 clutched 
 An arm in oilskins swiftly snatched away. 
 A voice said ''Christ!" a quick^ shape 
 
 stooped and touched. 
 Chain struck his hands, ropes shot, the sky 
 
 was smutched 
 With vast black fires that ran, that fell, 
 
 that furled. 
 And then he saw the mast, the small snow 
 
 hurled. 
 
 The fore topgallant yard far, far aloft. 
 And blankness settling on him and great 
 
 pain, 
 And snow beneath his fingers wet and soft, 
 
DAUBER 175 
 
 And topsail-sheet-blocks shaking at the 
 
 chain. 
 He knew it was he who had fallen; then 
 
 his brain 
 Swirled in a circle while he watched the 
 
 sky. 
 Infinite multitudes of snow blew by. 
 
 ''I thought it was Tom who fell/' his 
 
 brain's voice said. 
 ''Down on the bloody deck," the captain 
 
 screamed. 
 The multitudinous little snowflakes sped. 
 His pain was real enough, but all else 
 
 seemed. 
 Si with a bucket ran, the water gleamed, 
 Tilting upon him, others came, the 
 
 mate . . . 
 They knelt with eager eyes Uke things that 
 
 wait 
 
176 DAUBER 
 
 For other things to come. He saw them 
 
 there. 
 "It will go on," he murmured, watching 
 
 Si. 
 Colours and sounds seemed mixing in the 
 
 air. 
 The pain was stunning him and the wind 
 
 went by. 
 ''More water," said the mate. ''Here, 
 
 bosun; try, 
 Ask if he's got a message. Hell! he's gone. 
 Here, Dauber, Paints." He said, "It will 
 
 go on." 
 
 Not knowing his meaning rightly, but he 
 
 spoke 
 With the intenseness of a fading soul 
 Whose share of nature's fire turns to smoke. 
 Whose hand on nature's wheel loses control. 
 The eager faces glowered red like coal; 
 
DAUBER 177 
 
 They glowed, the great storm glowed, the 
 
 sails, the mast. 
 "It will go on," he cried aloud, and passed. 
 
 Those from the yard came down to tell 
 
 the tale. 
 "He almost had me off," said Tom. ''He 
 
 slipped. 
 There come one hell-of-a jump-hke from 
 
 the sail. 
 He clutched at me and almost had me 
 
 pipped. 
 He caught my 'ris'band, but the oilskin 
 
 ripped. 
 It tore clean off. Look here. I was near 
 
 gone. 
 I made a grab to catch him; so did John. 
 
 "I caught his arm. My God, I was near 
 done. 
 
178 DAUBEB 
 
 He almost had me over : it was near. 
 
 He hit the ropes and grabbed at every- 
 one." 
 
 ''Well/' said the mate, "we cannot leave 
 him here. 
 
 Run, Si, and get the half-deck table clear; 
 
 We'll lay him there. Catch hold there, 
 you, and you. 
 
 He's dead, poor son, there's nothing more 
 to do." 
 
 Night fell, and all night long the Dauber 
 
 lay 
 Covered upon the table; all night long 
 The pitiless storm exulted at her prey. 
 Huddling the waters with her icy thong. 
 But to the covered shape she did no wrong ; 
 He lay under the sailcloth. Bell by bell 
 The night wore through; the stars rose, 
 
 the stars fell. 
 
DAUBER 179 
 
 Blowing most pitiless cold out of clear 
 
 sky, 
 The wind roared all night long; and all 
 
 night through 
 The green seas on the deck went washing 
 
 by, 
 Flooding the half-deck ; bitter hard it blew. 
 But little of it all the Dauber knew : 
 The sopping bunks, the floating chests, the 
 
 wet. 
 The darkness and the misery and the 
 
 sweat. 
 
 He was off duty. So it blew all night, 
 And when the watches changed the men 
 
 would come, 
 Dripping within the door to strike a light 
 And stare upon the Dauber lying dumb. 
 And say, ''He come a cruel thump, poor 
 
 chum." 
 
180 DAUBER 
 
 Or ''He'd a been a fine big man," or 
 
 ''He . . . 
 A smart young seaman he was getting to 
 
 be." 
 
 Or, "Damn it all, it's what we've all to 
 
 face. . . . 
 I knew another fellow one time ..." then 
 Came a strange tale of death in a strange 
 
 place 
 Out on the sea, in ships, with wandering 
 
 men. 
 In many ways Death puts us into pen. 
 The reefers came down tired and looked 
 
 and slept. 
 Below the skylight httle dribbles crept 
 
 Along the painted woodwork, ghstening, 
 
 slow, 
 Following the roll and dripping, never fast, 
 
DAUBER 181 
 
 But dripping on the quiet form below 
 Like passing time talking to time long 
 
 past. 
 And all night long "Ai! Ai ! " went the 
 
 wind's blast, 
 And creaming water swished below the pale 
 Unheeding body stretched below the sail. 
 
 At dawn they sewed him up, and at eight 
 
 bells 
 They bore him to the gangway, wading 
 
 deep, 
 Through the green-clutching, white-toothed 
 
 water-hells 
 That flung his carriers over in their sweep. 
 They laid an old red ensign on the heap. 
 And all hands stood bareheaded, stooping, 
 
 swaying, 
 Washed by the sea, while the old man was 
 
 praying 
 
182 DAUBER 
 
 Out of a borrowed prayer-book. At a 
 sign 
 
 They twitched the ensign back and tipped 
 the grating : 
 
 A creamier bubbhng broke the bubbUng 
 brine, 
 
 The muffled figure tilted to the weight- 
 ing, 
 
 It dwindled slowly down, slowly gyrating; 
 
 Some craned to see, it dimmed, it disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The last green milky bubble blinked and 
 cleared. 
 
 "Mister, shake out your reefs," the captain 
 
 called. 
 *'Out topsail reefs," the mate cried; then 
 
 all hands 
 Hurried, the great sails shook, and all hands 
 
 hauled, 
 
DAUBER 183 
 
 Singing that desolate song of lonely lands, 
 Of the drowned lover come in dripping 
 
 bands, 
 Green with the wet and cold, to tell his 
 
 lover 
 That Death was in the sea and all was 
 
 over. 
 
 Fair came the falUng wind; a seaman 
 
 said 
 The Dauber was a Jonah ; once again 
 The clipper held her course, showing red 
 
 lead. 
 Shattering the sea tops into golden rain; 
 The waves bowed down before her like 
 
 blown grain. 
 Onwards she thundered, on; her voyage 
 
 was short, 
 Before the tier's bells rang her into 
 
 port. 
 
184 DAUBER 
 
 Cheerily they rang her in, those beating 
 
 bells, 
 The new-come beauty stately from the 
 
 sea, 
 Whitening the blue heave of the drowsy 
 
 swells, 
 Treading the bubbles down : with three 
 
 times three 
 They cheered her moving beauty in; and 
 
 she 
 Came to her berth, so noble, so superb, 
 Swayed like a queen and answered to the 
 
 curb. 
 
 Then in the sunset's flush they went aloft 
 And unbent sails in that most lovely hour 
 When the hght gentles and the wind is soft, 
 And beauty in the heart breaks like a 
 
 flower. 
 Working aloft they saw the mountain tower 
 
DAUBER 185 
 
 Snow to the peak; they heard the launch- 
 men shout ; 
 
 And bright along the bay the lights came 
 out. 
 
 And then the night fell dark, and all night 
 
 long 
 The pointed mountain pointed at the stars, 
 Frozen, alert, austere; the eagle's song 
 Screamed from her desolate screes and 
 
 splintered scars. 
 On her intense crags, where the air is 
 
 sparse, 
 The stars looked down, their many golden 
 
 eyes 
 Watched her and burned, burned out, and 
 
 came to rise. 
 
 Silent the finger of the summit stood. 
 Icy in pure, thin air, glittering with snows; 
 
186 DAUBEB 
 
 Then the sun's coming turned the peak to 
 blood, 
 
 And in the resthouse the muleteers arose. 
 
 And all day long, where only the eagle goes, 
 
 Stones, loosened by the sun, fall : the stones 
 falling 
 
 Fill empty gorge on gorge with echoes call- 
 ing. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts 
 Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts, 
 And long before this wandering flesh is 
 
 rotten 
 The dates which made me will be all for- 
 gotten ; 
 And none will know the gleam there used 
 
 to be 
 About the feast days freshly kept by me, 
 But men will call the golden hour of bliss 
 ''About this time," or ''shortly after this." 
 
 Men do not heed the rungs by which men 
 
 cUmb 
 Those glittering steps, those milestones upon 
 
 Time, 
 
 187 
 
188 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Those tombstones of dead selves, those 
 
 hours of birth, 
 Those moments of the soul in years of earth 
 They mark the height achieved, the main 
 
 result, 
 The power of freedom in the perished cult, 
 The power of boredom in the dead man's 
 
 deeds, 
 Not the bright moments of the sprinkled 
 
 seeds. 
 
 By many waters and on many ways 
 
 I have known golden instants and bright 
 
 days; 
 The day on which, beneath an arching sail, 
 I saw the Cordilleras and gave hail ; 
 The summer day on which in heart's delight 
 I saw the Swansea Mumbles bursting white. 
 The glittering day when all the waves wore 
 
 flags 
 
BIOGBAPHY 189 
 
 And the ship Wanderer came with sails in 
 
 rags; 
 That curlew-calling time in Irish dusk 
 When life became more splendid than its 
 
 husk, 
 When the rent chapel on the brae at Slains 
 Shone with a doorway opening beyond 
 
 brains ; 
 The dawn when, with a brace-block's creak- 
 ing cry, 
 Out of the mist a little barque slipped by. 
 Spilling the mist with changing gleams of 
 
 red. 
 Then gone, with one raised hand and one 
 
 turned head ; 
 The howling evening when the spindrift's 
 
 mists 
 Broke to display the four Evangelists, 
 Snow-capped, divinely granite, lashed by 
 
 breakers. 
 
190 BioanAPHY 
 
 Wind-beaten bones of long since buried 
 
 acres ; 
 The night alone near water when I heard 
 All the sea's spirit spoken by a bird ; 
 The English dusk when I beheld once more 
 (With eyes so changed) the ship, the citied 
 
 shore, 
 The lines of masts, the streets so cheerly 
 
 trod 
 (In happier seasons) and gave thanks to 
 
 God. 
 All had their beauty, their bright moments' 
 
 gift, 
 Their something caught from Time, the 
 
 ever-swift. 
 
 All of those gleams were golden; but life's 
 
 hands 
 Have given more constant gifts in changing 
 
 lands, 
 
BIOGBAPRT 191 
 
 And when I count those gifts, I think them 
 
 such 
 As no man's bounty could have bettered 
 
 much: 
 The gift of country hfe, near hills and 
 
 woods 
 Where happy waters sing in solitudes, 
 The gift of being near ships, of seeing each 
 
 day 
 A city of ships with great ships under 
 
 weigh, 
 The great street paved with water,' filled 
 
 with shipping, 
 And all the world's flags flying and seagulls 
 
 dipping. 
 
 Yet when I am dust my penman may not 
 
 know 
 Those water-trampling ships which made 
 
 me glow, 
 
192 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 But think my wonder mad and fail to 
 find 
 
 Their glory, even dimly, from my mind, 
 
 And yet they made me : 
 
 not alone the ships 
 
 But men hard-palmed from tallying-on to 
 whips, 
 
 The two close friends of nearly twenty 
 years, 
 
 Sea-followers both, sea-wrestlers and sea- 
 peers. 
 
 Whose feet with mine wore many a bolt- 
 head bright 
 
 Treading the decks beneath the riding light. 
 
 Yet death will make that warmth of friend- 
 ship cold 
 
 And who'll know what one said and what 
 one told 
 
 Our hearts' communion and the broken 
 spells 
 
BIOGRAPHY 193 
 
 When the loud call blew at the strike of 
 
 bells? 
 No one, I know, yet let me be believed 
 A soul entirely known is life achieved. 
 
 Years blank with hardship never speak a 
 
 word 
 Live in the soul to make the being stirred, 
 Towns can be prisons where the spirit dulls 
 Away from mates and ocean-wandering hulls, 
 Away from all bright water and great hills 
 And sheep-walks where the curlews cry their 
 
 fills. 
 Away in towns, where eyes have nought to 
 
 see 
 But dead museums and miles of misery 
 And floating life unrooted from man's need 
 And miles of fish-hooks baited to catch 
 
 greed 
 And life made wretched out of human ken 
 
194 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 And miles of shopping women served by men. 
 So, if the penman sums my London days 
 Let him but say that there were holy ways, 
 Dull Bloomsbury streets of dull brick man- 
 sions old 
 With stinking doors where women stood to 
 
 scold 
 And drunken waits at Christmas with their 
 
 horn 
 Droning the news, in snow, that Christ was 
 
 born; 
 And windy gas lamps and the wet roads 
 
 shining 
 And that old carol of the midnight whining. 
 And that old room (above the noisy slum) 
 Where there was wine and fire and talk 
 
 with some 
 Under strange pictures of the wakened soul 
 To whom this earth was but a burnt-out 
 
 coal. 
 
BIOGEAPUY 195 
 
 O Time, bring back those midnights and 
 those friends, 
 
 Those guttering moments that a spirit lends 
 
 That all may be imagined from the flash 
 
 The cloud-hid god-game through the light- 
 ning gash 
 
 Those hours of stricken sparks from which 
 men took 
 
 Light to send out to men in song or 
 book. 
 
 Those friends who heard St. Pancras' bells 
 strike two 
 
 Yet stayed until the barber's cockerel crew. 
 
 Talking of noble styles, the Frenchman's 
 best. 
 
 The thought beyond great poets not ex- 
 pressed, 
 
 The glory of mood where human frailty 
 failed, 
 
 The forts of human light not yet assailed. 
 
196 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Till the dim room had mind and seemed to 
 
 brood 
 Binding our wills to mental brotherhood, 
 Till we became a college, and each night 
 Was discipline and manhood and delight, 
 Till our farewells and winding down the 
 
 stairs 
 At each grey dawn had meaning that Time 
 
 spares, 
 That we, so linked, should roam the whole 
 
 world round 
 Teaching the ways our brooding minds had 
 
 found 
 Making that room our Chapter, our one 
 
 mind 
 Where all that this world soiled should be 
 
 refined. 
 
 Often at night I tread those streets again 
 And see the alley glimmering in the rain, 
 
BIOGRAPHY 197 
 
 Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps 
 A house with shadows of plane-boughs under 
 
 lamps, 
 The secret house where once a beggar stood 
 Trembling and blind to show his woe for 
 
 food. 
 And now I miss that friend who used to 
 
 walk 
 Home to my lodgings with me, deep in 
 
 talk, 
 Wearing the last of night out in still 
 
 streets 
 Trodden by us and pohcemen on their 
 
 beats 
 And cats, but else deserted; now I miss 
 That lively mind and guttural laugh of his 
 And that strange way he had of making 
 
 gleam, 
 Like something real, the art we used to 
 
 dream. 
 
198 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 London has been my prison ; but my books 
 Hills and great waters, labouring men and 
 
 brooks, 
 Ships and deep friendships and remembered 
 
 days 
 Which even now set all my mind ablaze 
 As that June day when, in the red bricks' 
 
 chinks 
 I saw the old Roman ruins white with 
 
 pinks 
 And felt the hillside haunted even then 
 By not dead memory of the Roman men. 
 And felt the hillside thronged by souls un- 
 seen 
 Who knew the interest in me and were keen 
 That man alive should understand man 
 
 dead 
 So many centuries since the blood was shed. 
 And quickened with strange hush because 
 
 this comer 
 
BIOGBAPHY 199 
 
 Sensed a strange soul alive behind the 
 
 summer. 
 That other day on Ercall when the stones 
 Were sunbleached white, hke long unburied 
 
 bones, 
 While the bees droned and all the air was 
 
 sweet 
 From honey buried underneath my feet. 
 Honey of purple heather and white clover 
 Sealed in its gummy bags till summer's 
 
 over. 
 Then other days by water, by bright sea. 
 Clear as clean glass and my bright friend 
 
 with me. 
 The cove clean bottomed where we saw the 
 
 brown 
 Red spotted plaice go skimming six feet 
 
 down 
 And saw the long fronds waving, white 
 
 with shells, 
 
200 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Waving, unfolding, drooping, to the swells ; 
 That sadder day when we beheld the great 
 And terrible beauty of a Lammas spate 
 Roaring white-mouthed in all the great 
 
 cliff's gaps 
 Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse. 
 While drenching clouds drove by and every 
 
 sense 
 Was water roaring or rushing or in offence, 
 And mountain sheep stood huddled and 
 
 blown gaps gleamed 
 Where torn white hair of torrents shook 
 
 and streamed. 
 That sadder day when we beheld again 
 A spate going down in sunshine after rain, 
 When the blue reach of water leaping 
 
 bright 
 Was one long ripple and clatter, flecked 
 
 with white. 
 And that far day, that never blotted page 
 
BIOGRAPHY 201 
 
 When youth was bright hke flowers about 
 
 old age 
 Fair generations bringing thanks for hfe 
 To that old kindly man and trembling wife 
 After their sixty years : Time never made 
 A better beauty since the Earth was laid 
 Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair 
 For the great gift of life which brought 
 
 them there. 
 
 Days of endeavour have been good : the 
 
 days 
 Racing in cutters for the comrade's praise, 
 The day they led my cutter at the turn 
 Yet could not keep the lead and dropped 
 
 astern, 
 The moment in the spurt when both boats' 
 
 oars 
 Dipped in each other's wash and throats 
 
 grew hoarse 
 
202 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 And teeth ground into teeth and both 
 strokes quickened 
 
 Lashing the sea, and gasps came, and hearts 
 sickened 
 
 And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking 
 stroke, 
 
 To put our weights on, though our hearts 
 were broke 
 
 And both boats seemed to stick and sea 
 seemed glue. 
 
 The tide a mill race we were struggling 
 through 
 
 And every quick recover gave us squints 
 
 Of them still there, and oar tossed water- 
 glints 
 
 And cheering came, our friends, our foemen 
 cheering, 
 
 A long, wild, rallying murmur on the hear- 
 ing— 
 
 'Tort Fore!" and ''Starboard Fore!" 
 "Port Fore." "Port Fore." 
 
BIOGEAPHT 203 
 
 ''Up with her, Starboard," and at that each 
 
 oar 
 Lightened, though arms were bursting, and 
 
 eyes shut 
 And the oak stretchers grunted in the strut 
 And the curse quickened from the cox, our 
 
 bows 
 Crashed, and drove talking water, we made 
 
 vows 
 Chastity vows and temperance; in our pain 
 We numbered things we'd never eat again 
 If we could only win ; then came the yell 
 ''Starboard," "Port Fore," and then a 
 
 beaten bell 
 Rung as for fire to cheer us. "Now." 
 
 Oars bent 
 Soul took the looms now body's bolt was 
 
 spent, 
 "Damn it, come on now," "On now," 
 
 "On now," "Starboard." 
 
204 BIOGllAPUY 
 
 'Tort Fore." ''Up with her, Port"; each 
 
 cutter harboured 
 Ten eye-shut painsick strugglers, "Heave, 
 
 oh, heave," 
 Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking 
 
 sheave. 
 "Heave," and I saw a back, then two. 
 
 "Port Fore." 
 "Starboard." "Come on." I saw the mid- 
 ship oar 
 And knew we had done them. "Port Fore." 
 "Starboard." "Now." 
 I saw bright water spurting at their bow 
 Their cox' full face an instant. They were 
 
 done. 
 The watchers' cheering almost drowned the 
 
 gun. 
 We had hardly strength to toss our oars; 
 
 our cry 
 Cheering the losing cutter was a sigh. 
 
BIOGRAPHT ■ 205 
 
 Other bright days of action have seemed 
 
 great : 
 Wild days in a pampero off the Plate ; 
 Good swimming days, at Hog Back or the 
 
 Coves 
 Which the young gannet and the corbie 
 
 loves ; 
 Surf-swimming between rollers, catching 
 
 breath 
 Between the advancing grave and breaking 
 
 death, 
 Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth 
 To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth, 
 And days of labour also, loading, hauling ; 
 Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, 
 
 pawling ; 
 The days with oxen, dragging stone from 
 
 blasting. 
 And dusty days in mills, and hot days 
 
 masting. 
 
206 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like 
 
 ice, 
 And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice ; 
 Mornings with buckwheat when the fields 
 
 did blanch 
 With White Leghorns come from the chicken 
 
 ranch. 
 Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill, 
 Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill. 
 Delights of work most real, delights that 
 
 change 
 The headache life of towns to rapture 
 
 strange 
 Not known by townsmen, nor imagined; 
 
 health 
 That puts new glory upon mental wealth 
 And makes the poor man rich. 
 
 But that ends, too, 
 Health with its thoughts of life; and that 
 
 bright view 
 
BIOGRAPHY 207 
 
 That sunny landscape from life's peak, that 
 
 glory, 
 And all a glad man's comments on Hfe's 
 
 story 
 And thoughts of marvellous towns and liv- 
 ing men 
 And what pens tell and all beyond the pen 
 End, and are summed in words so truly 
 
 dead 
 They raise no image of the heart and head, 
 The life, the man alive, the friend we knew, 
 The mind ours argued with or listened to. 
 None ; but are dead, and all life's keenness, 
 
 all, 
 Is dead as print before the funeral. 
 Even deader after, when the dates are 
 
 sought. 
 And cold minds disagree with what we 
 
 thought. 
 This many pictured world of many passions 
 
208 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Wears out the nations as a woman fashions, 
 And what hfe is is much to very few, 
 Men being so strange, so mad, and what 
 
 men do 
 So good to watch or share; but when men 
 
 count 
 Those hours of hfe that were a bursting 
 
 fount, 
 Sparkling the dusty heart with Uving 
 
 springs. 
 There seems a world, beyond our earthly 
 
 things. 
 Gated by golden moments, each bright 
 
 time 
 Opening to show the city white like lime. 
 High towered and many peopled. This 
 
 made sure, 
 Work that obscures those moments seems 
 
 impure, 
 Making our not-returning time of breath 
 
BIOGBAPRT 209 
 
 Dull with the ritual and records of death, 
 That frost of fact by which our wisdom 
 
 gives 
 Correctly stated death to all that lives. 
 
 Best trust the happy moments. What they 
 
 gave 
 Makes man less fearful of the certain grave, 
 And gives his work compassion and new 
 
 eyes. 
 The days that make us happy make us wise. 
 
SHIPS 
 
 I CANNOT tell their wonder nor make known 
 Magic that once thrilled through me to the 
 
 bone, 
 But all men praise some beauty, tell some 
 
 tale, 
 Vent a high mood which makes the rest 
 
 seem pale. 
 Pour their heart's blood to flourish one 
 
 green leaf, 
 Follow some Helen for her gift of grief, 
 And fail in what they mean, whate'er they 
 
 do: 
 You should have seen, man cannot tell to 
 
 you 
 
 The beauty of the ships of that my city. 
 210 
 
SHIPS 211 
 
 That beauty now is spoiled by the sea's pity ; 
 For one may haunt the pier a score of 
 
 times, 
 Hearing St. Nicholas bells ring out the 
 
 chimes, 
 Yet never see those proud ones swaying 
 
 home 
 With mainyards backed and bows a cream 
 
 of foam, 
 Those bows so lovely-curving, cut so fine, 
 Those coulters of the many-bubbled brine, 
 As once, long since, when all the docks were 
 
 filled 
 With that sea-beauty man has ceased to 
 
 build. 
 
 Yet, though their splendour may have 
 
 ceased to be. 
 Each played her sovereign part in making 
 
 me; 
 
212 SHIPS 
 
 Now I return my thanks with heart and 
 
 hps 
 For the great qiieenliness of all those ships. 
 
 And first the first bright memory, still so 
 
 clear, 
 An autumn evening in a golden year, 
 When in the last lit moments before dark 
 The Chepica, a steel-grey lovely barque, 
 Came to an anchor near us on the flood, 
 Her trucks aloft in sun-glow red as blood. 
 
 Then come so many ships that I could 
 fill 
 
 Three docks with their fair hulls remem- 
 bered still, 
 
 Each with her special memory's special 
 grace. 
 
 Riding the sea, making the waves give 
 place 
 
SHIPS 213 
 
 To delicate high beauty; man's best 
 
 strength, 
 Noble in every line in all their length. 
 Ailsa, Genista, ships, with long jibbooms. 
 The Wanderer with great beauty and strange 
 
 dooms, 
 Liverpool (mightiest then) superb, sublime, 
 The California huge, as slow as time. 
 The Copley swift, the perfect /. T. North, 
 The loveliest barque my city has sent forth, 
 Dainty John Lockett well remembered yet. 
 The splendid Argus with her sky sail set. 
 Stalwart Drumcliff, white-blocked, majestic 
 
 Sierras, 
 Divine bright ships, the water's standard- 
 bearers ; 
 Melpomene, Euphrosyne, and their sweet 
 Sea-troubling sisters of the Fernie fleet ; 
 Corunna (in whom my friend died) and the 
 old 
 
214 SHIPS 
 
 Long since loved Esmeralda long since 
 
 sold. 
 Centurion passed in Rio, Glaucus spoken, 
 Aladdin burnt, the Bidston water-broken, 
 Yola, in whom my friend sailed, Dawpool 
 
 trim. 
 Fierce-bowed Egeria plunging to the swim, 
 Stanmore wide-sterned, sweet Cupica, tall 
 
 Bard, 
 Queen in all harbours with her moon sail 
 
 yard. 
 
 Though I tell many, there must still be 
 others, 
 
 McVickar Marshall's ships and Fernie 
 Brothers', 
 
 Lochs, Counties, Shires, Drums, the count- 
 less lines 
 
 Whose house-flags all were once familiar 
 signs 
 
SHIPS 215 
 
 At high main-trucks on Mersey's windy 
 
 ways 
 When sunhght made the wind-white water 
 
 blaze. 
 Their names bring back old mornings, when 
 
 the docks 
 Shone with their house-flags and their 
 
 painted blocks, 
 Their raking masts below the Custom 
 
 House 
 And all the marvellous beauty of their 
 
 bows. 
 
 Familiar steamers, too, majestic steamers, 
 Shearing Atlantic roller-tops to streamers, 
 Umbria, Etruria, noble, still at sea. 
 The grandest, then, that man had brought 
 
 to be. 
 Majestic, City of Paris, City of Rome, 
 Forever jealous racers, out and home. 
 
216 SHIPS 
 
 The Alfred Holies blue smoke-stacks down 
 
 the stream, 
 The fair Loanda with her bows a-cream. 
 Booth hners, Anchor hners, Red Star Hners, 
 The marks and styles of countless ship- 
 designers, 
 The Magdalena, Puno, Potosi, 
 Lost Cotopaxi, all well known to me. 
 
 These splendid ships, each with her grace, 
 
 her glory. 
 Her memory of old song or comrade's story, 
 Still in my mind the image of life's need, 
 Beauty in hardest action, beauty indeed. 
 ''They built great ships and sailed them" 
 
 sounds most brave 
 Whatever arts we have or fail to have; 
 I touch my country's mind, I come to grips 
 With half her purpose, thinking of these 
 
 ships 
 
SHIPS 217 
 
 That art untouched by softness, all that 
 
 line 
 Drawn ringing hard to stand the test of 
 
 brine, 
 That nobleness and grandeur, all that 
 
 beauty 
 Born of a manly life and bitter duty, 
 That splendour of fine bows which yet 
 
 could stand 
 The shock of rollers never checked by land. 
 That art of masts, sail crowded, fit to break. 
 Yet stayed to strength and backstayed 
 
 into rake, 
 The life demanded by that art, the keen 
 Eye-puckered, hard-case seamen, silent, 
 
 lean, — 
 They are grander things than all the art of 
 
 towns, 
 Their tests are tempests and the sea that 
 
 drowns, 
 
218 SHIPS 
 
 They are my country's line, her great art 
 
 done 
 By strong brains labouring on the thought 
 
 unwon, 
 They mark our passage as a race of men, 
 Earth will not see such ships as those again. 
 
TRUTH 
 
 Man with his burning soul 
 Has but an hour of breath 
 To build a ship of Truth 
 In which his soul may sail, 
 Sail on the sea of death. 
 For death takes toll 
 Of beauty, courage, youth, 
 Of all but Truth. 
 
 Life's city ways are dark. 
 Men mutter by; the wells 
 Of the great waters moan. 
 death, O sea, tide, 
 The waters moan like bells. 
 No light, no mark, 
 The soul goes out alone 
 On seas unknown. 
 
 219 
 
220 TRUTH 
 
 Stripped of all purple robes, 
 
 Stripped of all golden lies, 
 
 I will not be afraid. 
 
 Truth will preserve through death; 
 
 Perhaps the stars will rise, 
 
 The stars like globes. 
 
 The ship my striving made 
 
 May see night fade. 
 
THEY CLOSED HER EYES 
 
 FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO 
 A. BECQUER. 
 
 They closed her eyes, 
 They were still open; 
 They hid her face 
 With a white linen, 
 And, some sobbing, 
 Others in silence. 
 From the sad bedroom 
 All came away. 
 
 The night-light in a dish 
 Burned on the floor, 
 It flung on the wall 
 The bed's shadow, 
 
 221 
 
222 THSY CLOSED HER ETES 
 
 And in that shadow 
 One saw sometimes 
 Drawn in sharp hne 
 The body's shape. 
 
 The day awakened 
 At its first whiteness 
 With its thousand noises; 
 The town awoke 
 Before that contrast 
 Of hfe and strangeness, 
 Of hght and darkness. 
 I thought a moment 
 
 My God, how lonely 
 
 The dead are! 
 
 From the house, shoulder-high 
 To church they bore her. 
 And in a chapel 
 They left her bier. 
 
TIIEY CLOSED HER EYES 223 
 
 There they surrounded 
 Her pale body 
 With yellow candles 
 And black stuffs. 
 
 At the last stroke 
 
 Of the ringing for the souls 
 
 An old crone finished 
 
 Her last prayers. 
 
 She crossed the narrow nave; 
 
 The doors moaned, 
 
 And the holy place 
 
 Remained deserted. 
 
 From a clock one heard 
 The measured ticking, 
 And from some candles 
 The guttering. 
 All things there 
 Were so grim and sad, 
 
224 THET CLOSED HER EYES 
 
 So dark and rigid, 
 
 That I thought a moment, 
 
 My God, how lonely 
 
 The dead are! 
 
 From the high belfry 
 The tongue of iron 
 Clanged, giving out 
 His sad farewell. 
 Crape on their clothes. 
 Her friends and kindred 
 Passed in a row, 
 Making procession. 
 
 In the last vault, 
 
 Dark and narrow, 
 
 The pickaxe opened 
 
 A niche at one end; 
 
 There they laid her down. 
 
 Soon they bricked the place up. 
 
THEY CLOSED HER EYES 225 
 
 And with a gesture 
 Bade grief farewell. 
 
 Pickaxe on shoulder 
 The grave-digger, 
 Singing between his teeth, 
 Passed out of sight. 
 The night came down; 
 It was all silent, 
 Lost in the shadows 
 I thought a moment. 
 
 My God, how lonely 
 
 The dead are! 
 
 In the long nights 
 Of bitter winter. 
 When the wind makes 
 The rafters creak, 
 When the violent rain 
 Lashes the windows. 
 Lonely, I remember 
 That poor girl. 
 
226 TRET CLOSED HER EYES 
 
 There falls the rain 
 With its noise eternal. 
 There the north wind 
 Fights with the rain. 
 Stretched in the hollow 
 Of the damp bricks 
 Perhaps her bones 
 Freeze with the cold. 
 
 Does the dust return to dust? 
 
 Does the soul fly to heaven? 
 
 Is all vile matter, 
 
 Rottenness, filthiness? 
 
 I know not. But 
 
 There is something — something 
 
 That I cannot explain, 
 
 Something that gives us 
 
 Loathing, terror. 
 
 To leave the dead 
 
 So alone, so wretched. 
 
THE HARP 
 
 FROM THE SPANISH OF DON GUSTAVO 
 A. BECQUER 
 
 In a dark corner of the room, 
 Perhaps forgotten by its owner, 
 Silent and dim with dust, 
 I saw the harp. 
 
 How many musics slumbered in its strings, 
 As the bird sleeps in the branches, 
 Waiting the snowy hand 
 That could awaken them. 
 
 Ah me, I thought, how many, many times 
 Genius thus slumbers in a human soul, 
 Waiting, as Lazarus waited, for a voice 
 To bid him ''Rise and walk." 
 
 227 
 
SONNET 
 
 FROM THE SPANISH OF DON FRANCISCO DB 
 QUEVEDO 
 
 I SAW the ramparts of my native land, 
 One time so strong, now dropping in decay, 
 Their strength destroyed by this new age's 
 
 way 
 That has worn out and rotted what was 
 
 grand. 
 I went into the fields : there I could see 
 The sun drink up the waters newly thawed. 
 And on the hills the moaning cattle pawed ; 
 Their miseries robbed the day of light for 
 
 me. 
 
 I went into my house : I saw how spotted. 
 Decaying things made that old home their 
 prize. 
 
 228 
 
SONNET 229 
 
 My withered walking-staff had come to 
 
 bend ; 
 I felt the age had won; my sword was 
 
 rotted, 
 And there was nothing on which I set my 
 
 eyes 
 That was not a reminder of the end. 
 
SONNET ON THE DEATH OF HIS 
 WIFE 
 
 FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF ANTONIO DE 
 FERREIRO 
 
 That blessed sunlight that once showed to 
 
 me 
 My way to heaven more plain more cer- 
 tainly, 
 And with her bright beam banished utterly 
 All trace of mortal sorrow far from me, 
 Has gone from me, has left her prison sad, 
 And I am blind and alone and gone astray. 
 Like a lost pilgrim in a desert way 
 Wanting the blessed guide that once he had. 
 
 Thus with a spirit bowed and mind a blur 
 I trace the holy steps where she has gone, 
 
 230 
 
SONNET ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE 231 
 
 By valleys and by meadows and by moun- 
 tains, 
 
 And everywhere I catch a glimpse of her. 
 
 She takes me by the hand and leads me on, 
 
 And my eyes follow her, my e3^es made 
 fountains. 
 
SONG 
 
 One sunny time in May 
 When lambs were sporting, 
 The sap ran in the spray 
 And I went courting, 
 And all the apple boughs 
 Were bright with blossom, 
 I picked an early rose 
 For my love's bosom. 
 
 And then I met her friend, 
 
 Down by the water, 
 
 Who cried ''She's met her end, 
 
 That gray-eyed daughter; 
 
 That voice of hers is stilled 
 
 Her beauty broken." 
 
 O me, my love is killed. 
 
 My love unspoken. 
 232 
 
SONG 233 
 
 She was too sweet, too dear, 
 
 To die so cruel, 
 
 O Death, why leave me here 
 
 And take my jewel? 
 
 Her voice went to the bone. 
 
 So true, so ringing, 
 
 And now I go alone. 
 
 Winter or springing. 
 
THE BALLAD OF SIR BORS 
 
 Would I could win some quiet and rest, and 
 a little ease, 
 
 In the cool grey hush of the dusk, in the 
 dim green place of the trees. 
 
 Where the birds are singing, singing, sing- 
 ing, crying aloud 
 
 The song of the red, red rose that blossoms 
 beyond the seas. 
 
 Would I could see it, the rose, when the 
 light begins to fail, 
 
 And a lone white star in the West is glim- 
 mering on the mail ; 
 
 The red, red passionate rose of the sacred 
 blood of the Christ, 
 
 In the shining chalice of God, the cup of 
 the Holy Grail. 
 
 234 
 
THE BALLAD OF SIR BORS 235 
 
 The dusk comes gathering grey, and the 
 
 darkness dims the West, 
 The oxen low to the byre, and all bells ring 
 
 to rest ; 
 But I ride over the moors, for the dusk still 
 
 bides and waits. 
 That brims my soul with the glow of the 
 
 rose that ends the Quest. 
 
 My horse is spavined and ribbed, and his 
 
 bones come through his hide. 
 My sword is rotten with rust, but I shake 
 
 the reins and ride. 
 For the bright white birds of God that nest 
 
 in the rose have called. 
 And never a township now is a town where 
 
 I can bide. 
 
 It will happen at last, at dusk, as my horse 
 limps down the fell, 
 
236 THE BALLAD OF SIR BOBS 
 
 A star will glow like a note God strikes on a 
 
 silver bell, 
 And the bright white birds of God will 
 
 carry my soul to Christ, 
 And the sight of the Rose, the Rose, will 
 
 pay for the years of hell. 
 
SPANISH WATERS 
 
 Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are 
 ringing in my ears, 
 
 Like a slow sweet piece of music from the 
 grey forgotten years; 
 
 Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bring- 
 ing weary thoughts to me 
 
 Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I 
 would that I could be. 
 
 There's a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and 
 
 it never stops to roar. 
 And it's there we came to anchor, and it's 
 
 there we went ashore. 
 Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags 
 
 of rotting trees. 
 
 Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up 
 
 by the seas. , 
 
 237 
 
238 SPANISH WATERS 
 
 We anchored at Los Muertos when the dip- 
 ping Sim was red, 
 
 We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of 
 Nigger Head ; 
 
 And before the mist was on the Cay, before 
 the day was done, 
 
 We were all ashore on Muertos with the 
 gold that we had won. 
 
 We bore it through the marshes in a half- 
 score battered chests, 
 
 Sinking, in the sucking quagmires, to the 
 sunburn on our breasts, 
 
 Heaving over tree-trunks, gasping, damning 
 at the flies and heat. 
 
 Longing for a long drink, out of silver, in 
 the ship's cool lazareet. 
 
 The moon came white and ghostly as we 
 laid the treasure down, 
 
SPANISH WATERS 239 
 
 There was gear there'd make a beggarman 
 
 as rich as Lima Town, 
 Copper charms and silver trinkets from the 
 
 chests of Spanish crews, 
 Gold doubloons and double moydores, louis 
 
 d'ors and portagues. 
 
 Clumsy yellow-metal earrings from the 
 
 Indians of Brazil, 
 Uncut emeralds out of Rio, bezoar stones 
 
 from Guayaquil; 
 Silver, in the crude and fashioned, pots of 
 
 old Arica bronze. 
 Jewels from the bones of Incas desecrated 
 
 by the Dons. 
 
 We smoothed the place with mattocks, and 
 we took and blazed the tree, 
 
 Which marks yon where the gear is hid that 
 none will ever see, 
 
240 SPANISH WATERS 
 
 And we laid aboard the ship again, and 
 
 south away we steers, 
 Through the loud surf of Los Muertos 
 
 which is beating in my ears. 
 
 I'm the last alive that knows it. All the 
 
 rest have gone their ways 
 Killed, or died, or come to anchor in the old 
 
 Mulatas Cays, 
 And I go singing, fiddling, old and starved 
 
 and in despair. 
 And I know where all that gold is hid, if I 
 
 were only there. 
 
 It's not the way to end it all. I'm old, 
 
 and nearly blind, 
 And an old man's past's a strange thing, 
 
 for it never leaves his mind. 
 And I see in dreams, awhiles, the beach, 
 
 the sun's disc dipping red. 
 
SPANISH ]VATERS 241 
 
 And the tall ship, under topsails, swaying 
 in past Nigger Head. 
 
 I'd be glad to step ashore there. Glad to 
 
 take a pick and go 
 To the lone blazed coco-palm tree in the 
 
 place no others know. 
 And lift the gold and silver that has 
 
 mouldered there for years 
 By the loud surf of Los Muertos which is 
 
 beating in my ears. 
 
CARGOES 
 
 QuiNQUiREME of Nineveh from distant 
 
 Ophir, 
 Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, 
 
 With a cargo of ivory, 
 
 And apes and peacocks, 
 
 Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white 
 
 wine. 
 
 Stately Spanish galleon coming from the 
 Isthmus, 
 
 Dipping through the Tropics by the palm- 
 green shores, 
 
 With a cargo of diamonds, 
 
 Emeralds, amethysts. 
 
 Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. 
 
 242 
 
CARGOES 243 
 
 Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked 
 
 smoke stack, 
 Butting through the Channel in the mad 
 
 March days, 
 With a cargo of Tyne coal, 
 Road-rails, pig-lead. 
 Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. 
 
CAPTAIN STRATTON'S FANCY 
 
 Oh some are fond of red wine, and some are 
 
 fond of white, 
 And some are all for dancing by the pale 
 
 moonlight ; 
 But rum alone's the tipple, and the heart's 
 
 delight 
 Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
 Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and 
 
 some are fond of French, 
 And some'll swallow tay and stuff fit only 
 
 for a wench ; 
 But I'm for right Jamaica till I roll beneath 
 
 the bench, 
 Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
 244 
 
CAPTAIN STRATTON^S FANCY 245 
 
 Oh some are for the hly, and some are for 
 
 the rose, 
 But I am for the sugar-cane that in Jamaica 
 
 grows ; 
 For it's that that makes the bonny drink to 
 
 warm my copper nose, 
 Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
 Oh some are fond of fiddles, and a song 
 
 well sung, 
 And some are all for music for to lilt upon 
 
 the tongue; 
 But mouths were made for tankards, and 
 
 for sucking at the bung. 
 Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
 Oh some are fond of dancing, and some are 
 
 fond of dice. 
 And some are all for red lips, and pretty 
 
 lasses' eyes ; 
 
246 CAPTAIN STEATTON^S FANCY 
 
 But a right Jamaica puncheon is a finer 
 prize 
 To the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
 Oh some that's good and godly ones they 
 
 hold that it's a sin 
 To troll the jolly bowl around, and let the 
 
 dollars spin ; 
 But I'm for toleration and for drinking at 
 
 an inn, 
 Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
 Oh some are sad and wretched folk that go 
 
 in silken suits. 
 And there's a mort of wicked rogues that 
 
 live in good reputes; 
 So I'm for drinking honestly, and dying in 
 
 my boots, 
 Like an old bold mate of Henry Morgan. 
 
AN OLD SONG RE-SUNG 
 
 I SAW a ship a-sailing, a-sailing, a-sailing, 
 With emeralds and rubies and sapphires in 
 
 her hold; 
 And a bosun in a blue coat bawling at the 
 
 railing, 
 Piping through a silver call that had a chain 
 
 of gold; 
 The summer wind was failing and the tall 
 
 ship rolled. 
 
 I saw a ship a-steering, a-steering, 
 
 a-steering, 
 With roses in red thread worked upon her 
 
 sails ; 
 With sacks of purple amethysts, the spoils 
 
 of buccaneering, 
 
 247 
 
248 AN OLD SONG RE- SUNG 
 
 Skins of musky yellow wine, and silks in 
 
 bales, 
 Her merry men were cheering, hauling on 
 
 the brails. 
 
 I saw a ship a-sinking, a-sinking, a-sinking, 
 With glittering sei-v/ater splashing on her 
 
 decks, 
 With seamen in her spirit-room singing 
 
 songs and drinking, 
 Pulling claret bottles down, and knocking 
 
 off the necks. 
 The broken glass was chinking as she sank 
 
 among the wrecks. 
 
ST. MARY'S BELLS 
 
 It's pleasant in Holy Mary 
 
 By San Marie lagoon, 
 
 The bells they chime and jingle 
 
 From dawn to afternoon. 
 
 They rhyme and chime and mingle, 
 
 They pulse and boom and beat, 
 
 And the laughing bells are gentle 
 
 And the mournful bells are sweet. 
 
 Oh, who are the men that ring them. 
 The bells of San Marie, 
 Oh, who but sonsie seamen 
 Come in from over sea. 
 And merrily in the belfries 
 They rock and sway and hale, 
 And send the bells a-j angle. 
 And down the lusty ale. 
 
 249 
 
260 -ST. mart's bells 
 
 It's pleasant in Holy Mary 
 
 To hear the beaten bells 
 
 Come booming into music, 
 
 Which throbs, and clangs, and swells, 
 
 From sunset till the daybreak, 
 
 From dawn to afternoon. 
 
 In port of Holy Mary 
 
 On San Marie lagoon. 
 
LONDON TOWN 
 
 Oh London Town's a fine town, and Lon- 
 don sights are rare, 
 
 And London ale is right ale, and brisk's the 
 London air, 
 
 And busily goes the world there, but crafty 
 grows the mind, 
 
 And London Town of all towns I'm glad to 
 leave behind. 
 
 Then hey for croft and hop-yard, and hill, 
 
 and field, and pond, 
 With Breden Hill before me and Malvern 
 
 Hill beyond. 
 The hawthorn white i' the hedgerow, and 
 
 all the spring's attire 
 
 In the comely land of Teme and Lugg, and 
 
 Clent, and Clee, and Wyre. 
 251 
 
252 LONDON TOWN 
 
 Oh London girls are brave girls, in silk and 
 
 cloth o' gold, 
 And London shops are rare shops, where 
 
 gallant things are sold. 
 And bonnily cUnks the gold there, but 
 
 drowsily blinks the eye. 
 And London Town of all towns I'm glad to 
 
 hurry by. 
 
 Then, hey for covert and woodland, and 
 
 ash and elm and oak, 
 Tewkesbury inns, and Malvern roofs, and 
 
 Worcester chimney smoke, 
 The apple trees in the orchard, the cattle in 
 
 the byre, 
 And all the land from Ludlow town to 
 
 Bredon church's spire. 
 
 Oh London tunes are new tunes, and Lon- 
 don books are wise, 
 
LONDON TOWN 253 
 
 And London plays are rare plays, and fine 
 
 to country eyes, 
 But craftily fares the knave there, and 
 
 wickedly fares the Jew, 
 And London Town of all towns I'm glad to 
 
 hurry through. 
 
 So hey for the road, the west road, by mill 
 
 and forge and fold, 
 Scent of the fern and song of the lark by 
 
 brook, and field, and wold. 
 To the comely folk at the hearth-stone and 
 
 the talk beside the fire. 
 In the hearty land, where I was bred, my 
 
 land of heart's desire. 
 
THE EMIGRANT 
 
 Going by Daly's shanty I heard the boys 
 
 within 
 Dancing the Spanish hornpipe to Driscoll's 
 
 viohn, 
 I heard the sea-boots shaking the rough 
 
 planks of the floor, 
 But I was going westward, I hadn't heart 
 
 for more. 
 
 All down the windy village the noise rang 
 
 in my ears, 
 Old sea boots stamping, shuffling, it brought 
 
 the bitter tears, 
 The old tune piped and quavered, the lilts 
 
 came clear and strong. 
 
 But I was going westward, I couldn't join 
 
 the song. 
 
 254 
 
THE EMIGRANT 255 
 
 There were the grey stone houses, the night 
 
 wind blowing keen, 
 The hill-sides pale with moonhght, the 
 
 young corn springing green. 
 The hearth nooks lit and kindly, with dear 
 
 friends good to see, 
 But I was going westward, and the ship 
 
 waited me. 
 
PORT OF HOLY PETER 
 
 The blue laguna rocks and quivers, 
 
 Dull gurgling eddies twist and spin, 
 The climate does for people's livers. 
 It's a nasty place to anchor in 
 Is Spanish port, 
 Fever port, 
 Port of Holy Peter. 
 
 The town begins on the sea-beaches, 
 And the town's mad with the stinging 
 flies. 
 The drinking water's mostly leeches, 
 It's a far remove from Paradise 
 Is Spanish port. 
 Fever port, 
 Port of Holy Peter. 
 
 256 
 
PORT OF HOLT PETER 257 
 
 There's sand-bagging and throat-slitting, 
 
 And quiet graves in the sea slime, 
 Stabbing, of course, and rum-hitting, 
 Dirt, and drink, and stink, and crime. 
 In Spanish port, 
 Fever port. 
 Port of Holy Peter. 
 
 All the day the wind's blowing 
 
 From the sick swamp below the hills. 
 All the night the plague's growing, 
 And the dawn brings the fever chills, 
 In Spanish port. 
 Fever port. 
 Port of Holy Peter. 
 
 You get a thirst there's no slaking. 
 You get the chills and fever-shakes, 
 
 Tongue yellow and head aching. 
 
 And then the sleep that never wakes. 
 
268 PORT OF HOLT PETER 
 
 And all the year the heat's baking, 
 The sea rots and the earth quakes, 
 In Spanish port, 
 Fever port, 
 Port of Holy Peter. 
 
BEAUTY 
 
 I HAA^E seen dawn and sunset on moors and 
 
 windy hills 
 Coming in solemn beauty like slow old 
 
 tunes of Spain: 
 I have seen the lady April bringing the 
 
 daffodils, 
 Bringing the springing grass and the soft 
 
 warm April rain. 
 
 I have heard the song of the blossoms and 
 
 the old chant of the sea, 
 And seen strange lands from under the 
 
 arched white sails of ships; 
 But the loveliest things of beauty God ever 
 
 has showed to me, 
 Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and 
 
 the dear red curve of her lips. 
 
 259 
 
THE SEEKERS 
 
 Friends and loves we have none, nor 
 
 wealth nor blessed abode, 
 But the hope of the City of God at the 
 
 other end of the road. 
 
 Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace 
 
 of mind, 
 For we go seeking a city that we shall never 
 
 find. 
 
 There is no solace on earth for us — for 
 
 such as we — 
 
 Who search for a hidden city that we shall 
 
 never see. 
 
 260 
 
THE SEEKERS 261 
 
 Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the 
 
 wind, and the rain, 
 And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, 
 
 and the road again. 
 
 We seek the City of God, and the haunt 
 
 where beauty dwells. 
 And we find the noisy mart and the sound 
 
 of burial bells. 
 
 Never the golden city, where radiant people 
 
 meet. 
 But the dolorous town where mourners are 
 
 going about the street. 
 
 We travel the dusty road till the light of 
 
 the day is dim, 
 And sunset shows us spires away on the 
 
 world's rim. 
 
262 THE SEEKERS 
 
 We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day 
 
 is past and by, 
 Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of 
 
 the sky. 
 
 Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth 
 
 nor blest abode. 
 But the hope of the City of God at the 
 
 other end of the road. 
 
PRAYER 
 
 When the last sea is sailed, when the last 
 
 shallow's charted, 
 When the last field is reaped, and the last 
 
 harvest stored. 
 When the last fire is out and the last guest 
 
 departed, 
 Grant the last prayer that I shall pray, be 
 
 good to me, Lord. 
 
 And let me pass in a night at sea, a night 
 
 of storm and thunder, 
 In the loud crying of the wind through sail 
 
 and rope and spar, 
 Send me a ninth great peaceful wave to 
 
 drown and roll me under 
 
 To the cold tunny-fish's home where the 
 
 drowned galleons are. 
 263 
 
264 PRAYER 
 
 And in the dim green quiet place far out of 
 
 sight and hearing, 
 Grant I may hear at whiles the wash and 
 
 thresh of the sea-foam 
 About the fine keen bows of the stately 
 
 clippers steering 
 Towards the lone northern star and the fair 
 
 ports of home. 
 
DAWN 
 
 The dawn comes cold : the haystack smokes, 
 
 The green twigs crackle in the fire, 
 The dew is dripping from the oaks. 
 And sleepy men bear milking-yokes 
 Slowly towards the cattle-byre. 
 
 Down in the town a clock strikes six. 
 
 The grey east heaven burns and glows. 
 The dew shines on the thatch of ricks, 
 A slow old crone comes gathering sticks, 
 The red cock in the ox-yard crows. 
 
 Beyond the stack where we have lain 
 
 The road runs twisted like a snake 
 
 (The white road to the land of Spain), 
 
 The road that we must foot again, 
 
 Though the feet halt and the heart ache. 
 265 
 
LAUGH AND BE MERRY 
 
 Laugh and be merry, remember, better the 
 
 world with a song, 
 Better the world with a blow in the teeth of 
 
 a wrong. 
 Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the 
 
 length of a span. ^ 
 
 Laugh and be proud to belong to the old 
 
 proud pageant of man. 
 
 Laugh and be merry : remember, in olden 
 
 time. 
 God made Heaven and Earth for joy He 
 
 took in a rhyme, 
 Made them, and filled them full with the 
 
 strong red wine of His mirth. 
 The splendid joy of the stars : the joy of 
 
 the earth. 
 
 266 
 
LAUGH AND BE MEUEY 267 
 
 So we must laugh and drink from the deep 
 
 blue cup of the sky, 
 Join the jubilant song of the great stars 
 
 sweeping by, 
 Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the 
 
 wine outpoured 
 In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy 
 
 of the Lord. 
 
 Laugh and be merry together, like brothers 
 
 akin. 
 Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful 
 
 inn. 
 Glad till the dancing stops, and the Hit of 
 
 the music ends. 
 Laugh till the game is played ; and be you 
 
 merry, my friends. 
 
JUNE TWILIGHT 
 
 TfiE twilight comes; the sun 
 
 Dips down and sets, 
 The boys have done 
 
 Play at the nets. 
 
 In a warm golden glow 
 The woods are steeped. 
 
 The shadows grow; 
 The bat has cheeped. 
 
 Sweet smells the new-mown hay; 
 
 The mowers pass 
 Home, each his way, 
 
 Through the grass. 
 
 268 
 
JUNE TWILIGHT 269 
 
 The night-wind stirs the fern, 
 
 A night-jar spins; 
 The windows burn 
 
 In the inns. 
 
 Dusky it grows. The moon ! 
 
 The dews descend. 
 Love, can this beauty in our hearts 
 
 End? 
 
ROADWAYS 
 
 One road leads to London, 
 One road runs to Wales, 
 
 My road leads me seawards 
 To the white dipping sails. 
 
 One road leads to the river. 
 As it goes singing slow; 
 
 My road leads to shipping, 
 Where the bronzed sailors go. 
 
 Leads me, lures me, calls me 
 To salt green tossing sea; 
 
 A road without earth's road-dust 
 Is the right road for me. 
 
 A wet road heaving, shining. 
 
 And wild with seagulls' cries, 
 270 
 
ROAD]VAYS 271 
 
 A mad salt sea-wind blowing 
 The salt spray in my eyes. 
 
 My road calls me, lures me 
 West, east, south, and north; 
 
 Most roads lead men homewards, 
 My road leads me forth 
 
 To add more miles to the tally 
 
 Of grey miles left behind, 
 In quest of that one beauty 
 
 God put me here to find. 
 
MIDSUMMER NIGHT 
 
 The perfect disc of the sacred moon 
 
 Through still blue heaven serenely swims, 
 And the lone bird's liquid music brims 
 
 The peace of the night with a perfect tune. 
 
 This is that holiest night of the year 
 
 When (the mowers say) may be heard and 
 
 seen 
 The ghostly court of the English queen, 
 
 Wlio rides to harry and hunt the deer. 
 
 And the woodland creatures cower awake, 
 A strange unrest is on harts and does. 
 For the maiden Dian a-hunting goes. 
 
 And the trembling deer are afoot in the 
 
 brake. 
 
 272 
 
MIDSUMMER NIGHT 273 
 
 They start at a shaken leaf : the sound 
 Of a dry twig snapped by a squnTel's foot 
 Is a nameless dread : and to them the 
 hoot 
 
 Of a mousing owl is the cry of a hound. 
 
 Oh soon the forest will ring with cries, 
 The dim green coverts will flash : the 
 
 grass 
 Will glow as the radiant hunters pass 
 
 After the quarry with burning eyes. 
 
 The hurrying feet will range unstayed 
 Of questing goddess and hunted fawn, 
 Till the east is grey with the sacred dawn, 
 
 And the red cock wakens the milking maid. 
 
THE HARPER'S SONG 
 
 This sweetness trembling from the strings 
 The music of my troublous lute 
 Hath timed Herodias' daughter's foot ; 
 Setting a-clink her ankle-rings 
 Whenas she danced to feasted kings. 
 
 Where gemmed apparel burned and caught 
 The sunset 'neath the golden dome, 
 To the dark beauties of old Rome 
 My sorrowful lute hath haply brought 
 Sad memories sweet with tender thought. 
 
 When night had fallen and lights and fires 
 Were darkened in the homes of men, 
 Some sighing echo stirred : — and then 
 The old cunning wakened from the wires 
 The old sorrows and the old desires. 
 
 274 
 
THE harper's song 275 
 
 Dead Kings in long forgotten lands, 
 And all dead beauteous women; some 
 Whose pride imperial hath become 
 Old armour rusting in the sands 
 And shards of iron in dusty hands, 
 
 Have heard my lyre's soft rise and fall 
 Go trembling down the paven ways, 
 Till every heart was all ablaze — 
 
 Hasty each foot — to obey the call 
 
 To triumph or to funeral. 
 
 Could I begin again the slow 
 Sweet mournful music filled with tears. 
 Surely the old, dead, dusty ears 
 
 Would hear; the old drowsy eyes would 
 glow, 
 
 Old memories come; old hopes and fears, 
 
 And time restore the long ago. 
 
THE GENTLE LADY 
 
 So beautiful, so dainty-sweet, 
 
 So like a lyre's delightful touch — 
 
 A beauty perfect, ripe, complete 
 
 That art's own hand could only smutch 
 
 And nature's self not better much. 
 
 So beautiful, so purely wrought. 
 Like a fair missal penned with hymns, 
 So gentle, so surpassing thought — 
 A beauteous soul in lovely limbs, 
 A lantern that an angel trims. 
 
 So simple-sweet, without a sin. 
 
 Like gentle music gently timed. 
 
 Like rhyme-words coming aptly in, 
 
 To round a mooned poem rhymed 
 
 To tunes the laughing bells have chimed. 
 
 276 
 
THE DEAD KNIGHT 
 
 The cleanly rush of the mountain air, 
 And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees, 
 Are the only things that wander there. 
 The pitiful bones are laid at ease, 
 The grass has grown in his tangled hair, 
 And a rambling bramble binds his knees. 
 
 To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell, 
 The only requiem bells that rang 
 Were the harebell and the heather bell. 
 Hushed he is with the holy spell 
 In the gentle hymn the wind sang, 
 And he lies quiet, and sleeps well. 
 He is bleached and blanched with the sum- 
 mer sun ; 
 
 The misty rain and the cold dew 
 
 277 
 
278 THE DEAD KNIGHT 
 
 Have altered him from the kingly one 
 Whom his lady loved, and his men knew, 
 And dwindled him to a skeleton. 
 
 The vetches have twined about his bones, 
 
 The straggling ivy twists and creeps 
 
 In his eye-sockets : the nettle keeps 
 
 Vigil about him while he sleeps. 
 
 Over his body the wind moans 
 
 With a dreary tune throughout the day, 
 
 In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin 
 
 As the gulls' cry, as the cry in the bay. 
 
 The mournful word the seas say 
 
 When tides are wandering out or in. 
 
SORROW OF MYDATH 
 
 Weaey the cry of the wind is, weary the 
 
 sea, 
 Weary the heart and the mind and the 
 
 body of me. 
 Would I were out of it, done with it, would 
 
 I could be 
 A white gull crying along the desolate 
 
 sands. 
 
 Outcast, derelict soul in a body accurst, 
 Standing drenched with the spindrift, stand- 
 ing athirst. 
 For the cool green waves of death to arise 
 and burst 
 In a tide of quiet for me on the desolate 
 
 sands. 
 
 279 
 
280 SORROW OF MYDATH 
 
 Would that the waves and the long white 
 
 hair of the spray 
 Would gather in splendid terror, and blot 
 
 me away 
 To the sunless place of the wrecks where 
 
 the waters sway 
 Gently, dreamily, quietly over desolate 
 
 sands. 
 
TWILIGHT 
 
 Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, 
 
 and the rooks cry and call. 
 Down in the valley the lamps, and the mist, 
 
 and a star over all. 
 There by the rick, where they thresh, is the 
 
 drone at an end, 
 Twihght it is, and I travel the road with 
 
 my friend. 
 
 I think of the friends who are dead, who 
 were dear long ago in the past. 
 
 Beautiful friends who are dead, though I 
 know that death cannot last; 
 
 Friends with the beautiful eyes that the dust 
 has defiled. 
 
 Beautiful souls who were gentle when I was 
 
 a child. 
 
 281 
 
INVOCATION 
 
 O WANDERER into many brains, 
 spark the emperor's purple hides, 
 You sow the dusk with fiery grains 
 When the gold horseman rides. 
 O beauty on the darkness hurled. 
 Be it through me you shame the world. 
 
 282 
 
POSTED AS MISSING 
 
 Under all her topsails she trembled like a 
 
 stag, 
 The wind made a ripple in her bonny red 
 
 flag; 
 They cheered her from the shore and they 
 
 cheered her from the pier, 
 And under all her topsails she trembled like 
 
 a deer. 
 
 So she passed swaying, where the green 
 
 seas run, 
 Her wind-steadied topsails were stately in 
 
 the sun; 
 There was glitter on the water from her 
 
 red port light. 
 
 So she passed swaying, till she was out 
 
 of sight. 
 
 283 
 
284 POSTED AS MISSING 
 
 Long and long ago it was, a weary time 
 it is, 
 
 The bones of her sailor-men are coral plants 
 by this; 
 
 Coral plants, and shark-weed, and a mer- 
 maid's comb. 
 
 And if the fishers net them they never 
 bring them home. 
 
 It's rough on sailors' women. They have 
 to mangle hard. 
 
 And stitch at dungarees till their finger- 
 ends are scarred. 
 
 Thinking of the sailor-men who sang among 
 the crowd; 
 
 Hoisting of her topsails when she sailed so 
 proud. 
 
A CREED 
 
 I HOLD that when a person dies 
 His soul returns again to earth; 
 
 Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise 
 Another mother gives him birth. 
 
 With sturdier hmbs and brighter brain 
 
 The old soul takes the roads again. 
 
 Such is my own belief and trust; 
 
 This hand, this hand that holds the pen, 
 Has many a hundred times been dust 
 
 And turned, as dust, to dust again; 
 These eyes of mine have blinked and shone 
 In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon. 
 
 All that I rightly think or do, 
 
 Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast, 
 
 285 
 
286 A CREED 
 
 Is curse or blessing justly due 
 
 For sloth or effort in the past. 
 My life's a statement of the sum 
 Of vice indulged, or overcome. 
 
 I know that in my lives to be 
 
 My sorry heart will ache and burn, 
 
 And worship, unavailingly, 
 
 The woman whom I used to spurn, 
 
 And shake to see another have 
 
 The love I spurned, the love she gave. 
 
 And I shall know, in angry words, 
 
 In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear, 
 
 A carrion flock of homing-birds, 
 
 The gibes and scorns I uttered here. 
 
 The brave word that I failed to speak 
 
 Will brand me dastard on the cheek. 
 
 And as I wander on the roads 
 
 I shall be helped and healed and blessed; 
 
A CEEED 287 
 
 Dear words shall cheer and be as goads 
 
 To urge to heights before unguessed. 
 My road shall be the road I made; 
 All that I gave shall be repaid. 
 
 So shall I fight, so shall I tread, 
 In this long war beneath the stars; 
 
 So shall a glory wreathe my head. 
 So shall I faint and show the scars, 
 
 Until this case, this clogging mould. 
 
 Be smithied all to kingly gold. 
 
WHEN BONY DEATH 
 
 When bony Death has chilled her gentle 
 blood, 
 And dimmed the brightness of her wistful 
 eyes, 
 And changed her glorious beauty into mud 
 By his old skill in hateful wizardries; 
 
 When an old lichened marble strives to tell 
 
 How sweet a grace, how red a lip was 
 
 hers; 
 
 When rheumy grey-beards say, ''I knew her 
 
 well," 
 
 Showing the grave to curious worshippers ; 
 
 When all the roses that she sowed in me 
 Have dripped their crimson petals and 
 decayed, 
 
 288 
 
WHEN BONY DEATH 289 
 
 Leaving no greenery on any tree 
 That her dear hands in my heart's garden 
 laid, 
 
 Then grant, old Time, to my green moulder- 
 ing skull, 
 
 These songs may keep her memory beauti- 
 ful. 
 
THE WEST WIND 
 
 It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of 
 
 birds' cries ; 
 I never he«ar the west wind bu,t tears are in 
 
 my eyes. 
 For it comes from the west lands, the old 
 
 brown hills, 
 And April's in the west wind, and daffodils. 
 
 It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as 
 
 tired as mine, 
 Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's 
 
 like wine. 
 There is cool green grass there, where men 
 
 may lie at rest, 
 And the thrushes are in song there, fluting 
 
 from the nest. 
 
 290 
 
TUE WEST WIND 291 
 
 ''Will you not come home, brother? You 
 
 have been long away. 
 It's April, and blossom time, and white is 
 
 the spray : 
 And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is 
 
 the rain, 
 Will you not come home, brother, home to 
 
 us again? 
 
 The young corn is green, brother, where the 
 
 rabbits run ; 
 It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm 
 
 rain and sun. 
 It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a 
 
 man's brain. 
 To hear the wild bees and see the merry 
 
 spring again. 
 
 Larks are singing in the west, brother, 
 above the green wheat, 
 
292 TUE WEST WIND 
 
 So will you not come home, brother, and 
 
 rest yom' tired feet? 
 I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep 
 
 for aching eyes," 
 Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of 
 
 birds' cries. 
 
 It's the white road westwards is the road I 
 
 must tread 
 To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest 
 
 for heart and head, 
 To the violets and the brown brooks and 
 
 the thrushes' song 
 In the fine land, the west land, the land 
 
 where I belong. 
 
HER HEART 
 
 Her heart is always doing lovely things, 
 Filling my wintry mind with simple 
 flowers ; 
 
 Playing sweet tunes on my untuned strings, 
 Delighting all my undelightful hours. 
 
 She plays me like a lute, what tune she will, 
 
 No string in me but trembles at her 
 
 touch, 
 
 Shakes into sacred music, or is still, 
 
 Trembles or stops, or swells, her skill is 
 
 such. 
 
 And in the dusty tavern of my soul 
 
 Where filthy lusts drink witches' brew for 
 
 wine, 
 
 293 
 
294 HER HEART 
 
 Her gentle hand still keeps me from the 
 bowl, 
 Still keeps me man, saves me from being 
 swine. 
 
 All grace in me, all sweetness in my verse. 
 Is hers, is my dear girl's, and only hers. 
 
BEING HER FRIEND 
 
 Being her friend, I do not care, not I, 
 How gods or men may wrong me, beat 
 me down; 
 
 Her word's sufficient star to travel by, 
 I count her quiet praise sufficient crown. 
 
 Being her friend, I do not covet gold. 
 Save for a royal gift to give her pleasure ; 
 
 To sit with her, and have her hand to hold, 
 Is wealth, I think, surpassing minted 
 treasure. 
 
 Being her friend, I only covet art, 
 A white pure flame to search me as I 
 trace 
 
 In crooked letters from a throbbing heart 
 The hymn to beauty written on her face. 
 
 295 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 Troy Town is covered up with weeds, 
 The rabbits and the pismires brood 
 
 On broken gold, and shards, and beads 
 Wliere Priam's ancient palace stood. 
 
 The floors of many a gallant house 
 Are matted with the roots of grass; 
 
 The glow-worm and the nimble mouse 
 Among her ruins flit and pass. 
 
 And there, in orts of blackened bone, 
 The widowed Trojan beauties lie, 
 
 And Simois babbles over stone 
 And waps and gurgles to the sky. 
 
 Once there were merry days in Troy, 
 
 Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals, 
 
 The passing chariots did annoy 
 The sunning housewives at their wheels. 
 
 296 
 
FBAGMENTS 297 
 
 And many a lovely Trojan maid 
 Set Trojan lads to lovely things; 
 
 The game of life was nobly played, 
 
 They played the game like Queens and 
 Kings. 
 
 So that, when Troy had greatly passed 
 
 In one red roaring fiery coal, 
 The courts the Grecians overcast 
 
 Became a city in the soul. 
 
 In some green island of the sea. 
 
 Where now the shadowy coral grows 
 
 In pride and pomp and empery 
 The courts of old Atlantis rose. 
 
 In many a glittering house of glass 
 The Atlanteans wandered there; 
 
 The paleness of their faces was 
 Like ivory, so pale they were. 
 
298 FRAGMENTS 
 
 And hushed they were, no noise of words 
 In those bright cities ever rang; 
 
 Only their thoughts, hke golden birds, 
 About their chambers thrilled and sang. 
 
 They knew all wisdom, for they knew 
 The souls of those Egyptian Kings 
 
 Who learned, in ancient Babilu, 
 The beauty of immortal things. 
 
 They knew all beauty — when they thought 
 The air chimed like a stricken lyre, 
 
 The elemental birds were wrought. 
 The golden birds became a fire. 
 
 And straight to busy camps and marts 
 The singing flames were swiftly gone; 
 
 The trembling leaves of human hearts 
 Hid boughs for them to perch upon. 
 
 And men in desert places, men 
 
 Abandoned, broken, sick with fears. 
 
FRAGMENTS 299 
 
 Rose singing, swung their swords agen, 
 And laughed and died among the spears. 
 
 The green and greedy seas have drowned 
 That city's ghttering walls and towers, 
 
 Her sunken minarets are crowned 
 With red and russet water-flowers. 
 
 In towers and rooms and golden courts 
 The shadowy coral lifts her sprays; 
 
 The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts, 
 The shark doth haunt her hidden ways. 
 
 But, at the falling of the tide, 
 
 The golden birds still sing and gleam, 
 
 The Atlanteans have not died, 
 
 Immortal things still give us dream. 
 
 The dream that fires man's heart to make, 
 To build, to do, to sing or say 
 
 A beauty Death can never take, 
 An Adam from the crumbled clay. 
 
BORN FOR NOUGHT ELSE 
 
 Born for nought else, for nothing but for 
 this, 
 
 To watch the soft blood throbbing in her 
 
 throat, 
 
 To think how comely sweet her body is, 
 
 And learn the poem of her face by rote. 
 
 Born for nought else but to attempt a 
 rhyme 
 That shall describe her womanhood 
 aright. 
 And make her holy to the end of Time, 
 And be my soul's acquittal in God's 
 sight. 
 
 Born for nought else but to expressly mark 
 The music of her dear delicious ways; 
 
 300 
 
BORN FOR NOUGHT ELSE 301 
 
 Born but to perish meanly in the dark, 
 Yet born to be the man to sing her 
 praise. 
 
 Born for nought else: there is a spirit tells 
 My lot's a King's, being born for nothing 
 else. 
 
TEWKESBURY ROAD 
 
 It is good to be out on the road, and going 
 one knows not where, 
 Going through meadow and village, one 
 knows not whither nor why ; 
 Through the grey light drift of the dust, in 
 the keen cool rush of the air, 
 Under the flying white clouds, and the 
 broad blue lift of the sky. 
 
 And to halt at the chattering brook, in the 
 tall green fern at the brink 
 Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, 
 and the foxgloves purple and white; 
 Where the shy-eyed delicate deer troop 
 down to the brook to drink 
 When the stars are mellow and large at 
 the coming on of the night. 
 
 302 
 
TEWKSBURY ROAD 303 
 
 O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the 
 homely smell of the earth, 
 Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy 
 past power of words ; 
 And the blessed green comely meadows are 
 all a-ripple with mirth 
 At the noise of the lambs at play and the 
 dear wild cry of the birds. 
 
THE DEATH ROOMS 
 
 My soul has many an old decaying room 
 Hung with the ragged arras of the past, 
 
 Where startled faces flicker in the gloom, 
 And horrid whispers set the cheek aghast. 
 
 Those dropping j-ooms are haunted by a 
 death, 
 A something like a worm gnawing a 
 brain. 
 That bids me heed what bitter lesson saith 
 The blind wind beating on the window- 
 pane. 
 
 None dwells in those old rooms : none ever 
 
 can — 
 
 I pass them through at night with hidden 
 
 head; 
 
 304 
 
THE DEATH ROOMS 305 
 
 Lock'd rotting rooms her eyes must never 
 scan, 
 
 Floors that her blessed feet must never 
 
 tread. 
 
 Haunted old rooms : rooms she must never 
 
 know, 
 Where death-ticks knock and mouldering 
 
 panels glow. 
 
IGNORANCE 
 
 Since I have learned Love's shining alpha- 
 bet, 
 And spelled in ink what's writ in me in 
 flame, 
 And borne her sacred image richly set 
 Here in my heart to keep me quit of 
 shame ; 
 
 Since I have learned how wise and passing 
 
 wise 
 
 Is the dear friend whose beauty I extol, 
 
 And know how sweet a soul looks through 
 
 the eyes, 
 
 That are so pure a window to her soul ; 
 
 Since I have learned how rare a woman 
 shows 
 
 306 
 
IGNORANCE 307 
 
 As much in all she does as in her looks, 
 And seen the beauty of her shame the 
 rose, 
 And dim the beauty writ about in books ; 
 
 All I have learned, and can learn, shows me 
 
 this — 
 How scant, how slight, my knowledge of 
 
 her is. 
 
SEA FEVER 
 
 I MUST go down to the seas again, to the 
 
 lonely sea and the sky, 
 And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to 
 
 steer her by ; 
 And the wheel's kick and the wind's song 
 
 and the white sail's shaking, 
 And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a 
 
 grey dawn breaking, 
 
 I must go down to the seas again, for the 
 
 call of the running tide 
 Is a wild call and a clear call that may not 
 
 be denied; 
 And all I ask is a windy day with the white 
 
 clouds flying. 
 
 And the flung spray and the blown spume, 
 
 and the sea-gulls crying. 
 308 
 
SEA FEVER 309 
 
 I must go down to the seas again, to the 
 vagrant gypsy hfe, 
 
 To the gull's way and the whale's way 
 where the wind's like a whetted knife ; 
 
 And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laugh- 
 ing fellow-rover, 
 
 And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when 
 the long trick's over. 
 
THE WATCH IN THE WOOD 
 
 When Death has laid her in his quietude, 
 And dimmed the glow of her benignant 
 star, 
 Her tired limbs shall rest within a wood, 
 In a green glade where oaks and beeches 
 are, 
 
 Where the shy fawns, the pretty fawns, the 
 deer, 
 With mild brown eyes shall view her 
 spirit's husk ; 
 The sleeping woman of her will appear. 
 The maiden Dian shining through the dusk. 
 
 And, when the stars are white as twilight 
 fails. 
 And the green leaves are hushed, and the 
 winds swoon, 
 
 310 
 
THE WATCH IN THE WOOD 311 
 
 The calm pure thrilling throats of nightin- 
 gales 
 Shall hymn her sleeping beauty to the 
 moon. 
 
 All the woods hushed — save for a dripping 
 rose, 
 
 All the woods dim — save where a glow- 
 worm glows. 
 
 Brimming the quiet woods with holiness, 
 The lone brown birds will hymn her till 
 the dawn, 
 The delicate, shy, dappled deer will press 
 Soft pitying muzzles on her swathed 
 lawn. 
 
 The little pretty rabbits running by. 
 
 Will pause among the dewy grass to 
 peep. 
 Their thudding hearts affrighted to espy 
 
 The maiden Dian lying there asleep. 
 
312 THE WATCH IN THE WOOD 
 
 Brown, lustrous, placid eyes of sylvan 
 things 
 Will wonder at the quiet in her face, 
 While from the thorny branch the singer 
 brings 
 Beauty and peace to that immortal place. 
 
 Until the grey dawn sets the woods astir 
 The pure birds' thrilling psalm will mourn 
 for her. 
 
G. L. M. 
 
 In the dark womb where I began 
 My mother's life made me a man. 
 Through all the months of human birth 
 Her beauty fed my common earth. 
 I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, 
 But through the death of some of her. 
 
 Down in the darkness of the grave 
 She cannot see the life she gave. 
 For all her love, she cannot tell 
 Whether I use it ill or well, 
 Nor knock at dusty doors to find 
 Her beauty dusty in the mind. 
 
 If the grave's gates could be undone, 
 She would not know her little son, 
 I am so grown. If we should meet 
 
 313 
 
314 C. L. M. 
 
 She would pass by me in the street, 
 Unless my soul's face let her see 
 My sense of what she did for me. 
 
 What have I done to keep in mind 
 My debt to her and womankind? 
 What woman's happier life repays 
 Her for those months of wretched days? 
 For all my mouthless body leeched 
 Ere Birth's releasing hell was reached? 
 
 What have I done, or tried, or said 
 In thanks to that dear woman dead? 
 Men triumph over women still. 
 Men trample women's rights at will, 
 And man's lust roves the world untamed. 
 
 Hf itt 4^ * 
 
 O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed. 
 
WASTE 
 
 No rose but fades : no glory but must pass : 
 No hue but dims : no precious silk but 
 frets. 
 
 Her beauty must go underneath the grass, 
 Under the long roots of the violets. 
 
 0, many glowing beauties Time has hid 
 In that dark, blotting box the villain 
 sends. 
 He covers over with a coffin-lid 
 Mothers and sons, and foes and lovely 
 friends. 
 
 Maids that were redly-lipped and comely- 
 skinned, 
 Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than 
 
 clay, 
 
 315 
 
316 WASTE 
 
 All are as blossoms blowing down the 
 wind, 
 Things the old envious villain sweeps 
 away. 
 
 And though the mutterer laughs and 
 
 church bells toll, 
 Death brings another April to the soul. 
 
THIRD MATE 
 
 All the sheets are clacking, all the blocks 
 
 are whining, 
 The sails are frozen stiff and the wetted 
 
 decks are shining; 
 The reef's in the topsails, and it's coming 
 
 on to blow. 
 And I think of the dear girl I left long 
 
 ago. 
 
 Grey were her eyes, and her hair was long 
 
 and bonny. 
 Golden was her hair, like the wild bees' 
 
 honey. 
 And I was but a dog, and a mad one to 
 
 despise, 
 
 The gold of her hair and the grey of her 
 
 eyes. 
 
 317 
 
318 THIRD MATE 
 
 There's the sea before me, and my home's 
 
 behind me, 
 And beyond there the strange lands where 
 
 nobody will mind me, 
 No one but the girls with the paint upon 
 
 their cheeks, 
 Who sell away their beauty to whomsoever 
 
 seeks. 
 
 There'll be drink and women there, and 
 
 songs and laughter, 
 Peace from what is past and from all that 
 
 follows after; 
 And a fellow will forget how a woman lies 
 
 awake. 
 Lonely in the night watch crying for his 
 
 sake. 
 
 Black it blows and bad and it howls like 
 slaughter. 
 
THIRD MATE 319 
 
 And the ship she shudders as she takes the 
 water. 
 
 Hissing flies the spindrift hke a wind- 
 blown smoke, 
 
 And I think of a woman and a heart I 
 broke. 
 
THE WILD DUCK 
 
 Twilight. Red in the west. 
 
 Dimness. A glow on the wood. 
 
 The teams plod home to rest. 
 
 The wild duck come to glean. 
 
 O souls not understood, 
 
 What a wild cry in the pool; 
 
 What things have the farm ducks 
 
 seen 
 That they cry so — huddle and cry?. 
 
 Only the soul that goes. 
 Eager. Eager. Flying. 
 Over the globe of the moon, 
 Over the wood that glows. 
 Wings linked. Necks a-strain, 
 
 320 
 
THE WILD DUCK 321 
 
 A rush and a wild crying. 
 * * * 
 
 A cry of the long pain 
 
 In the reeds of a steel lagoon. 
 
 In a land that no man knows. 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1903 
 
 0, THE sea breeze will be steady, and the 
 
 tall ship's going trim, 
 And the dark blue skies are paling, and 
 
 the white stars burning dim; 
 The long night watch is over, and the long 
 
 sea-roving done, 
 And yonder light is the Start Point light, 
 
 and yonder comes the sun. 
 
 O, we have been with the Spaniards, and 
 
 far and long on the sea; 
 But there are the twisted chimneys, and 
 
 the gnarled old inns on the quay. 
 The wind blows keen as the day breaks, 
 
 the roofs are white with the rime. 
 And the church-bells ring as the sun comes 
 
 up to call men in to Prime. 
 
 322 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1903 323 
 
 The church-bells rock and jangle, and there 
 is peace on the earth. 
 
 Peace and good will and plenty and Christ- 
 mas games and mirth. 
 
 0, the gold glints bright on the wind-vane 
 as it shifts above the squire's house, 
 
 And the water of the bar of Salcombe is 
 muttering about the bows. 
 
 0, the salt sea tide of Salcombe, it 
 
 wrinkles into wisps of foam, 
 And the church-bells ring in Salcombe to 
 
 ring poor sailors home. 
 The belfry rocks as the bells ring, the 
 
 chimes are merry as a song, 
 They ring home wandering sailors who 
 
 have been homeless long. 
 
THE WORD 
 
 My friend, my bonny friend, when we are 
 old, 
 And hand in hand go tottering down the 
 hill, 
 May we be rich in love's refined gold. 
 May love's gold coin be current with us 
 still. 
 
 May love be sweeter for the vanished 
 days. 
 And your most perfect beauty still as 
 dear 
 As when your troubled singer stood at 
 gaze 
 In the dear March of a most sacred 
 year. 
 
 324 
 
THE WORD 325 
 
 May what we are be all we might have 
 
 been, 
 
 And that potential, perfect, O my friend, 
 
 And may there still be many sheafs to 
 
 glean 
 
 In our love's acre, comrade, till the end. 
 
 And may we find, when ended is the page, 
 Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage. 
 
T 
 
 HE following pages contain advertise- 
 ments of books by the same author and 
 other recent important poetry. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Everlasting Mercy, and 
 The Widow in Bye Street 
 
 Decorated boards, $i.jo net ; postpaid, $1.63 
 
 " John Masefield is the man of the hour, and the man of to- 
 morrow too, in poetry and in the playwriting craft." — John 
 Galsworthy. 
 
 " — recreates a wholly new drama of existence." — IVilliam 
 Stanley Braithwaite, N. Y. Times. 
 
 " Mr. Masefield comes like a flash of light across contempo- 
 rary English poetry, and he trails glory where his imagination 
 reveals the substances of life. The improbable has been 
 accomplished by Mr. Masefield; he has made poetry out of the 
 very material that has refused to yield it for almost a score of 
 years. It has only yielded it with the passion of Keats, and 
 shaped it with the imagination of Coleridge." — Boston Evening 
 Transcript. 
 
 "Originality, force, distinction, and deep knowledge of the 
 human heart." — Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 " They are truly great pieces." — Kentucky Post. 
 
 "A vigor and sincerity rare in modern EngHsh literature." 
 
 — The hidependejit. 
 
 " If Mr. Masefield has occasionally appeared to touch a remi- 
 niscent chord with George Meredith, it is merely an example 
 of his good taste and the sameness of big themes." — George 
 Middleton in La Toilette's Magazine. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
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:w Poems and Essays 
 
 By WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 
 
 The Cutting of an Agate 
 
 " Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the 
 most widely known of the men concerned directly in the 
 so-called Celtic renaissance. More than this, he stands 
 among the few men to be reckoned with in modern 
 poetry." — New York Herald. 
 
 The Green Helmet and Other Poems 
 
 Decorated doth, izmo, $1.25 
 
 The initial piece in this volume is a deliciously conceived 
 heroic farce, quaint in humor and sprightly in action. It 
 tells of the difficulty in which two simple Irish folk find 
 themselves when they enter into an agreement with an ap- 
 parition of the sea, who demands that they knock off his 
 head and who maintains that after they have done that he 
 will knock off theirs. There is a real meaning in the play 
 which it will not take the thoughtful reader long to dis- 
 cover. Besides this there are a number of shorter poems, 
 notably one in which Mr. Yeats answers his critics of "The 
 Playboy of the Western World." 
 
 Plays 
 
 iVew edition. Cloth, izmo. $2.00 net 
 
 This edition of Mr. Yeats's plays has been thoroughly re- 
 vised and contains considerable new matter in the way of 
 appendices. " The Countess Cathleen " and " The Land 
 of Heart's Desire " are presented in new form, the versions 
 being those which the Irish Players use. 
 
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Other Works by William Butler Yeats 
 
 Lyrical and Dramatic Poems 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 Vol. I. Lyrical $i-TS net 
 
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 The two-volume edition of the Irish poet's works includes 
 everything he has done in verse up to the present time. 
 The first volume contains his lyrics ; the second includes 
 all of his five dramas in verse : " The Countess Cathleen," 
 "The Land of Heart's Desire," "The King's Threshold," 
 " On Baile's Strand," and " The Shadowy Waters." 
 William Butler Yeats stands among the few men to be 
 reckoned with in modern poetry, especially of a dramatic 
 character. 77ie New York Sun, for example, refers to him 
 as " an important factor in English literature," and con- 
 tinues : — 
 
 " 'Cathleen ni Hoolihan ' is a perfect piece of artistic work, 
 poetic and wonderfully dramatic to read, and, we should 
 imagine, far more dramatic in the acting. Maeterlinck has 
 never done anything so true or effective as this short prose 
 drama of Mr. Yeats's. There is not a superfluous word in 
 the play and no word that does not tell. It must be dan- 
 gerous to represent it in Ireland, for it is an Irish Marseil- 
 laise. ... In 'The Hour Glass' a noble and poetic idea 
 is carried out effectively, while ' A Pot of Broth ' is merely a 
 dramatized humorous anecdote. But ' Cathleen ni Hooli- 
 han ' stirs the blood, and in itself establishes Mr. Yeats's 
 reputation for good." 
 
 Other Works 
 
 The Celtic Twilight i2mo, $1.50 net 
 
 The Hour Glass and Other Plays i2mo, $1.25 net 
 
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Fires 
 
 By W. W. GIBSON 
 
 Author of " Daily Bread," " Womenkind," etc. 
 
 Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 net 
 
 • In this striking book of verse Mr. Gibson writes of simple, 
 homely folk with touching sympathy. The author's previous 
 book, " Daily Bread," was heralded far and wide as the 
 book of the year in the field of poetry; in " Fires " are con- 
 tained many of the same characteristics which distinguished 
 it. The story of a girl whose lover is struck dead by a 
 flying bit of stone; of a wife who has unusual patience 
 with her husband's shortcomings; of a flute player; of a 
 shop and a shopkeeper; of a machine and those who feed 
 it — these are the subjects of a number of the separate 
 pieces. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 JJaily JDread in Three 'Books i2mo, $1.25 net 
 
 Womenkind ,,^,, 5,.,^ net 
 
 " There is a man in England who with sufficient plainness 
 and sufficient profoundness is addressing himself to life, 
 and daring to chant his own times and social circumstances, 
 who ought to become known to America. He is bringing 
 . a message which might well rouse his day and generation 
 to an understanding of and a sympathy with life's disin- 
 herited — the overworked masses." 
 
 "A Millet in word-painting, who writes with a terrible 
 simplicity, is Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, born in Hexham, 
 England, in 1878, of whom Canon Cheyne wrote : ' A new 
 poet of the people has risen up among us — the story of a 
 soul is written as plainly in " Daily Bread " as in " The 
 Divine Comedy " and in " Paradise Lost." ' " 
 
 " Mr. Gibson is a genuine singer of his own day, and turns 
 into appealing harmony the world's harshly jarring notes of 
 poverty and pain." 
 
 — Abridged from an article in " The Outlook." 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
A Book that has been Waited For 
 
 THE MODERN READER'S CHAUCER 
 
 The Complete Poetical 
 Works of Geoffrey Chaucer 
 
 Now first put into modern English by 
 
 JOHN S. P. TATLOCK 
 
 Author of " The Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works," 
 AND 
 
 PERCY MacKAYE 
 
 Author of " The Canterbury Pilgrims," etc. 
 
 With 32 full-page illustrations in color by War'wick Gable 
 
 Decorated cloth, 4to, $j.oo net 
 Any one unversed in old English is familiar with the diffi- 
 culty of reading Chaucer in the original — to many it is 
 not only a difficulty, but an impossibility. The vast liter- 
 ary wealth of Chaucer's writings has been therefore up to 
 this time beyond the grasp of the general reader — for 
 there has been no complete rendering in modern English. 
 It is to do away with this condition that "The Modern 
 Reader's Chaucer " has been prepared. Adhering closely 
 to the original, the editors have rendered in modern 
 English all the wonderful tales of this early poet. A 
 particular feature of the volume is the illustrations, of 
 which there are thirty-two in colors from paintings by 
 Warwick Goble, the celebrated English artist. From the 
 standpoint of artistic book making it is to be doubted if a 
 handsomer book will be published for some time to come 
 or even one which will stand comparison with this. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
OV 29 1912 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 707 810 9 •