Lion lay still while the cold tides of deathCame brimming up his channels. With one handHe groped to know if Michael still drew breath.His little hour was running out its sand.Then, in a mist, he saw his Mary standAbove. He cried aloud, “He was my brother.I was his comrade sworn, and we have killed each other.“Oh desolate grief, beloved, and through me.We wise who try to change. Oh, you wild birds,Help my unhappy spirit to the sea.The golden bowl is scattered into sherds.”And Mary knelt and murmured passionate wordsTo that poor body on the dabbled flowers:“Oh, beauty, oh, sweet soul, oh, little love of ours—“Michael, my own heart’s darling, speak; it’s me,Mary. You know my voice. I’m here, dear, here.Oh, little golden-haired one, listen. See,It’s Mary, Michael. Speak to Mary, dear.Oh, Michael, little love, he cannot hear;And you have killed him, Lion; he is dead.My little friend, my love, my Michael, golden head.“We had such fun together, such sweet fun,My love and I, my merry love and I.Oh, love, you shone upon me like the sun.Oh, Michael, say some little last good-bye.”Then in a calm voice Lion called, “I die.Go home and tell my people. Mary. Hear.Though I have wrought this ruin, I have loved you, dear.“Better than he; not better, dear, as well.If you could kiss me, dearest, at this last.We have made bloody doorways from our hell,Cutting our tangle. Now, the murder past,We are but pitiful poor souls; and fastThe darkness and the cold come. Kiss me, sweet;I loved you all my life; but some lives never meet“Though they go wandering side by side through Time.Kiss me,” he cried. She bent, she kissed his brow.“Oh, friend,” she said, “you’re lying in the slime.”“Three blind ones, dear,” he murmured, “in the slough,Caught fast for death; but never mind that now;Go home and tell my people. I am dying,Dying dear, dying now.” He died; she left him lying,And kissed her dead one’s head and crossed the field.“They have been killed,” she called, in a great crying.“Killed, and our spirits’ eyes are all unsealedThe blood is scattered on the flowers drying.”It was the hush of dusk, and owls were flying;They hooted as the Occleves ran to bringThat sorry harvest home from Death’s red harvesting.They laid the bodies on the bed together.And “You were beautiful,” she said, “and youWere my own darling in the April weather.You knew my very soul, you knew, you knew.Oh, my sweet, piteous love, I was not true.Fetch me fair water and the flowers of spring;My love is dead, and I must deck his burying.”They left her with her dead; they could not chooseBut grant the spirit burning in her faceRights that their pity urged them to refuse.They did her sorrow and the dead a grace.All night they heard her passing footsteps traceAbout the flooring in the room of death.They heard her singing there, lowly, with gentle breath,Yet when the darkness passed they tried the door,And burst it, fearing; there the singer layDrooped at her lover’s bedside on the floor,Singing her passionate last of life away.White flowers had fallen from a blackthorn sprayOver her loosened hair. Pale flowers of springFilled the white room of death; they everything.Primroses, daffodils, and cuckoo-flowers.She bowed her singing head on Michael’s breast.“Oh, it was sweet,” she cried, “that love of ours.You were the dearest, sweet; I loved you best.Beloved, my beloved, let me restBy you forever, little Michael mine.Now the great hour is stricken, and the bread and wine“Broken and spilt; and now the homing birdsDraw to a covert, Michael; I to you.Bury us two together,” came her words.The dropping petals fell about the two.Her heart had broken; she was dead. They drewHer gentle head aside; they found it pressedAgainst the broidered ’kerchief spread on Michael’s breast,The one that bore her name in Michael’s hair,Given so long before. They let her lieWhile the dim moon died out upon the air,And happy sunlight coloured all the sky.The lack cock crowed for morning; carts went by;Smoke rose from cottage chimneys; from the byreThe yokes went clanking by, to dairy, through the mire.In the day’s noise the water’s noise was stilled,But still it slipped along, the cold hill-spring,Dropping from leafy hollows, which it filled,On to the pebbly shelves which made it sing;Glints glittered on it from the ’fisher’s wing;It saw the moorhen nesting; then it stayedIn a great space of reeds where merry otters played.Slowly it loitered past the shivering reedsInto a mightier water; thence its courseBecomes a pasture where the salmon feeds,Wherein no bubble tells its humble source;But the great waves go rolling, and the horseSnorts at the bursting waves and will not drink,And the great ships go outward, bubbling to the brink,Outward, with men upon them, stretched in line,Handling the halliards to the ocean’s gates,Where flicking windflaws fill the air with brine,And all the ocean opens. Then the matesCry, and the sunburnt crew no longer waits,But sings triumphant and the topsail fillsTo this old tale of woe among the daffodils.
Lion lay still while the cold tides of deathCame brimming up his channels. With one handHe groped to know if Michael still drew breath.His little hour was running out its sand.Then, in a mist, he saw his Mary standAbove. He cried aloud, “He was my brother.I was his comrade sworn, and we have killed each other.“Oh desolate grief, beloved, and through me.We wise who try to change. Oh, you wild birds,Help my unhappy spirit to the sea.The golden bowl is scattered into sherds.”And Mary knelt and murmured passionate wordsTo that poor body on the dabbled flowers:“Oh, beauty, oh, sweet soul, oh, little love of ours—“Michael, my own heart’s darling, speak; it’s me,Mary. You know my voice. I’m here, dear, here.Oh, little golden-haired one, listen. See,It’s Mary, Michael. Speak to Mary, dear.Oh, Michael, little love, he cannot hear;And you have killed him, Lion; he is dead.My little friend, my love, my Michael, golden head.“We had such fun together, such sweet fun,My love and I, my merry love and I.Oh, love, you shone upon me like the sun.Oh, Michael, say some little last good-bye.”Then in a calm voice Lion called, “I die.Go home and tell my people. Mary. Hear.Though I have wrought this ruin, I have loved you, dear.“Better than he; not better, dear, as well.If you could kiss me, dearest, at this last.We have made bloody doorways from our hell,Cutting our tangle. Now, the murder past,We are but pitiful poor souls; and fastThe darkness and the cold come. Kiss me, sweet;I loved you all my life; but some lives never meet“Though they go wandering side by side through Time.Kiss me,” he cried. She bent, she kissed his brow.“Oh, friend,” she said, “you’re lying in the slime.”“Three blind ones, dear,” he murmured, “in the slough,Caught fast for death; but never mind that now;Go home and tell my people. I am dying,Dying dear, dying now.” He died; she left him lying,And kissed her dead one’s head and crossed the field.“They have been killed,” she called, in a great crying.“Killed, and our spirits’ eyes are all unsealedThe blood is scattered on the flowers drying.”It was the hush of dusk, and owls were flying;They hooted as the Occleves ran to bringThat sorry harvest home from Death’s red harvesting.They laid the bodies on the bed together.And “You were beautiful,” she said, “and youWere my own darling in the April weather.You knew my very soul, you knew, you knew.Oh, my sweet, piteous love, I was not true.Fetch me fair water and the flowers of spring;My love is dead, and I must deck his burying.”They left her with her dead; they could not chooseBut grant the spirit burning in her faceRights that their pity urged them to refuse.They did her sorrow and the dead a grace.All night they heard her passing footsteps traceAbout the flooring in the room of death.They heard her singing there, lowly, with gentle breath,Yet when the darkness passed they tried the door,And burst it, fearing; there the singer layDrooped at her lover’s bedside on the floor,Singing her passionate last of life away.White flowers had fallen from a blackthorn sprayOver her loosened hair. Pale flowers of springFilled the white room of death; they everything.Primroses, daffodils, and cuckoo-flowers.She bowed her singing head on Michael’s breast.“Oh, it was sweet,” she cried, “that love of ours.You were the dearest, sweet; I loved you best.Beloved, my beloved, let me restBy you forever, little Michael mine.Now the great hour is stricken, and the bread and wine“Broken and spilt; and now the homing birdsDraw to a covert, Michael; I to you.Bury us two together,” came her words.The dropping petals fell about the two.Her heart had broken; she was dead. They drewHer gentle head aside; they found it pressedAgainst the broidered ’kerchief spread on Michael’s breast,The one that bore her name in Michael’s hair,Given so long before. They let her lieWhile the dim moon died out upon the air,And happy sunlight coloured all the sky.The lack cock crowed for morning; carts went by;Smoke rose from cottage chimneys; from the byreThe yokes went clanking by, to dairy, through the mire.In the day’s noise the water’s noise was stilled,But still it slipped along, the cold hill-spring,Dropping from leafy hollows, which it filled,On to the pebbly shelves which made it sing;Glints glittered on it from the ’fisher’s wing;It saw the moorhen nesting; then it stayedIn a great space of reeds where merry otters played.Slowly it loitered past the shivering reedsInto a mightier water; thence its courseBecomes a pasture where the salmon feeds,Wherein no bubble tells its humble source;But the great waves go rolling, and the horseSnorts at the bursting waves and will not drink,And the great ships go outward, bubbling to the brink,Outward, with men upon them, stretched in line,Handling the halliards to the ocean’s gates,Where flicking windflaws fill the air with brine,And all the ocean opens. Then the matesCry, and the sunburnt crew no longer waits,But sings triumphant and the topsail fillsTo this old tale of woe among the daffodils.
Lion lay still while the cold tides of deathCame brimming up his channels. With one handHe groped to know if Michael still drew breath.His little hour was running out its sand.Then, in a mist, he saw his Mary standAbove. He cried aloud, “He was my brother.I was his comrade sworn, and we have killed each other.
“Oh desolate grief, beloved, and through me.We wise who try to change. Oh, you wild birds,Help my unhappy spirit to the sea.The golden bowl is scattered into sherds.”And Mary knelt and murmured passionate wordsTo that poor body on the dabbled flowers:“Oh, beauty, oh, sweet soul, oh, little love of ours—
“Michael, my own heart’s darling, speak; it’s me,Mary. You know my voice. I’m here, dear, here.Oh, little golden-haired one, listen. See,It’s Mary, Michael. Speak to Mary, dear.Oh, Michael, little love, he cannot hear;And you have killed him, Lion; he is dead.My little friend, my love, my Michael, golden head.
“We had such fun together, such sweet fun,My love and I, my merry love and I.Oh, love, you shone upon me like the sun.Oh, Michael, say some little last good-bye.”Then in a calm voice Lion called, “I die.Go home and tell my people. Mary. Hear.Though I have wrought this ruin, I have loved you, dear.
“Better than he; not better, dear, as well.If you could kiss me, dearest, at this last.We have made bloody doorways from our hell,Cutting our tangle. Now, the murder past,We are but pitiful poor souls; and fastThe darkness and the cold come. Kiss me, sweet;I loved you all my life; but some lives never meet
“Though they go wandering side by side through Time.Kiss me,” he cried. She bent, she kissed his brow.“Oh, friend,” she said, “you’re lying in the slime.”“Three blind ones, dear,” he murmured, “in the slough,Caught fast for death; but never mind that now;Go home and tell my people. I am dying,Dying dear, dying now.” He died; she left him lying,
And kissed her dead one’s head and crossed the field.“They have been killed,” she called, in a great crying.“Killed, and our spirits’ eyes are all unsealedThe blood is scattered on the flowers drying.”It was the hush of dusk, and owls were flying;They hooted as the Occleves ran to bringThat sorry harvest home from Death’s red harvesting.
They laid the bodies on the bed together.And “You were beautiful,” she said, “and youWere my own darling in the April weather.You knew my very soul, you knew, you knew.Oh, my sweet, piteous love, I was not true.Fetch me fair water and the flowers of spring;My love is dead, and I must deck his burying.”
They left her with her dead; they could not chooseBut grant the spirit burning in her faceRights that their pity urged them to refuse.They did her sorrow and the dead a grace.All night they heard her passing footsteps traceAbout the flooring in the room of death.They heard her singing there, lowly, with gentle breath,
Yet when the darkness passed they tried the door,And burst it, fearing; there the singer layDrooped at her lover’s bedside on the floor,Singing her passionate last of life away.White flowers had fallen from a blackthorn sprayOver her loosened hair. Pale flowers of springFilled the white room of death; they everything.
Primroses, daffodils, and cuckoo-flowers.She bowed her singing head on Michael’s breast.“Oh, it was sweet,” she cried, “that love of ours.You were the dearest, sweet; I loved you best.Beloved, my beloved, let me restBy you forever, little Michael mine.Now the great hour is stricken, and the bread and wine
“Broken and spilt; and now the homing birdsDraw to a covert, Michael; I to you.Bury us two together,” came her words.The dropping petals fell about the two.Her heart had broken; she was dead. They drewHer gentle head aside; they found it pressedAgainst the broidered ’kerchief spread on Michael’s breast,
The one that bore her name in Michael’s hair,Given so long before. They let her lieWhile the dim moon died out upon the air,And happy sunlight coloured all the sky.The lack cock crowed for morning; carts went by;Smoke rose from cottage chimneys; from the byreThe yokes went clanking by, to dairy, through the mire.
In the day’s noise the water’s noise was stilled,But still it slipped along, the cold hill-spring,Dropping from leafy hollows, which it filled,On to the pebbly shelves which made it sing;Glints glittered on it from the ’fisher’s wing;It saw the moorhen nesting; then it stayedIn a great space of reeds where merry otters played.
Slowly it loitered past the shivering reedsInto a mightier water; thence its courseBecomes a pasture where the salmon feeds,Wherein no bubble tells its humble source;But the great waves go rolling, and the horseSnorts at the bursting waves and will not drink,And the great ships go outward, bubbling to the brink,
Outward, with men upon them, stretched in line,Handling the halliards to the ocean’s gates,Where flicking windflaws fill the air with brine,And all the ocean opens. Then the matesCry, and the sunburnt crew no longer waits,But sings triumphant and the topsail fillsTo this old tale of woe among the daffodils.
Messenger.This gold chain ...Bears the twelve badges of the strength of SpainOnce linked in glory, Philip, but now loosed.(Detaching link from link.)Castilla, Leon, Aragon, and these,Palestine, Portugal, the Sicilies,Navarre, Granada, the Valencian State,The Indies, East and West, the Archducate,The Western Mainland in the Ocean Sea.Those who upheld their strength have ceased to be.I, who am dying, King, have seen their graves.Philip, your Navy is beneath the waves.Philip.He who in bounty gives in wisdom takes.Messenger.O King, forgive me, for my spirit breaks;I saw those beaches where the Grange descendsWhite with unburied corpses of stripped friends.Philip.I grieve that Spain’s disaster brings such loss.Messenger.From Pentland to the Groyne the tempests tossUnshriven Spaniards driving with the tide.They were my lovely friends and they have died,Far from wind-broken Biscay, far from home,With no anointing chrism but the foam.Philip.The dead will rise from unsuspected slime;God’s chosen will be gathered in God’s time.Messenger.King, they died helpless; our unwieldy fleetMade such a target to the English gunsThat we were riddled through like sifted wheat.We never came to grappling with them once.They raked us from a distance, and then ran.Each village throughout Spain has lost a man;The widows in the seaports fill the streets.Philip.Uncertain chance decides the fate of fleets.Messenger.Now the North Sea is haunted for all timeBy miserable souls whose dying wordsCursed the too proud adventure as a crime.Our broken galleons house the gannet-birds.The Irish burn our Captain’s bones for lime.O misery that the might of England wrought!Philip.Christ is the only remedy for thoughtWhen the mind sickens. We are pieces played,Not moving as we will, but as we are made;Beaten and spurred at times like stubborn steeds,That we may go God’s way. Your spirit bleeds,Having been proved in trouble past her strength.Give me the roll in all its ghastly length.Which of my friends survive, if any live?Messenger.Some have survived, but all are fugitive.Your Admiral in command is living still;Michæl Oquendo too, though he is ill,Dying of broken heart and bitter shame.Valdes is prisoner, Manrique the same.Philip.God willed the matter; they are not to blame.Thank God that they are living. Name the rest.Messenger.They are all dead ... with him you loved the best.Philip.I dreamed De Leyva died, so it is true?Messenger.Drowned on the Irish coast with all his crew.After enduring dying many daysThe sea has given him quiet. Many waysLead men to death, and he a hard one trod,Bearing much misery, like a knight of God.Philip.Amen. Go on.Messenger.Hugh de Moncada died,Shot in his burning ship by Calais side,Cheering his men to save her. PimentelSank in a galleon shambled like a hellRather than yield, and in a whirl of flamesPedro Mendoza, Captain of St. James,Stood with Don Philip thrusting boarders backTill their Toledan armour was burnt black,And both their helms ran blood. And there they fell,Shot down to bleed to death. They perished well,Happy to die in battle for their KingBefore defeat had fallen on their friends;Happier than most, for where the merrows singParedes and his brother met their ends,And Don Alarcon, cast alive ashore,Was killed and stripped and hanged upon a tree.And young Mendoza, whom the flagship bore,Died of starvation and of misery.But hundreds perished, King; why mention these?Battle and hunger, heart-break, and the seasHave overwhelmed the chivalry of Spain.Philip.Misfortune, after effort, brings no stain.Perhaps I underjudged the English fleet.How was it that the Spaniards met defeat?What evil fortune brought about our fall?Messenger.Their sailors and their cannon did it all.Philip.Yet when the fleet reached Calais all went well.Messenger.Our woes began there.Philip.Tell me what befell.Messenger.We were to ship the troops in Calais Road;They lay encamped, prepared to go aboard.To windward still the English fleet abode—Still as in port when peace has been restored.The wind and sea were fair,We lay at anchor there;The stars burned in the air,The men were sleeping,When in the midnight darkOur watchman saw a sparkSuddenly light a barkWith long flames leaping.Then, as they stood amazed,Others and other blazed;Then terror set them crazed,They ran down screaming:“Fire-ships are coming! Wake!Cast loose, for Jesus’ sake!Eight fire-ships come from Drake—Look at their gleaming!”Roused in the dark from bed,We saw the fire show red,And instant panic spreadThrough troops and sailors;They swarmed on deck unclad,They did what terror bade,King, they were like the madEscaped from jailers.Some prayed for mercy, someRang bells or beat the drum,As though despair had comeAt hell’s contriving;Captains with terror paleScreamed through the dark their hail,“Cut cable, loose the sail,And set all driving!”Heading all ways at once,Grinding each other’s guns,Our blundering galleonsAthwart-hawse galleys,Timbers and plankings cleft,And half our tackling reft,Your grand Armada leftThe roads of Calais.Weary and overwroughtWe strove to make all taut;But when the morning broughtThe dawn to light us,Drake, with the weather gage,Made signal to engage,And, like a pard in rage,Bore down to fight us.Nobly the English lineTrampled the bubbled brine,We heard the gun-trucks whineTo the taut laniard.Onwards we saw them forge,White-billowing at the gorge.“On, on!” they cried, “St. George!Down with the Spaniard!”From their van squadron brokeA withering battle-stroke,Tearing our plankèd oakBy straiks asunder,Blasting the wood like rotWith such a hail of shot,So constant and so hotIt beat us under.The English would not close;They fought us as they chose,Dealing us deadly blowsFor seven hours.Lords of our chiefest rankThe bitter billow drank,For there the English sankThree ships of ours.* * * *Then the wind forced us northward from the fight;We could not ship the army nor return;We held the sea in trouble through the night,Watching the English signals blink and burn.The English in a dim cloud kept astern;All night they signalled, while our shattered shipsHuddled like beasts beneath the drovers’ whips.* * * *At dawn the same wind held; we could not strive.The English drove us north as herdsmen drive.* * * *Under our tattered flags,With rigging cut to rags,Our ships like stricken stagsWere heaped and hounded.Caught by the unknown tide,With neither chart nor guide,We fouled the Holland side,Where four more grounded.Our water-casks were burst,The horses died of thirst,The wounded raved and curst,Uncared, untended.All night we heard the cryingOf lonely shipmates dying;We had to leave them lying.So the fight ended.Philip.God gives His victory as He wills. But thisWas not complete destruction. What thing worseCame to destroy you?Messenger.An avenging curse,Due for old sins, destroyed us.Philip.Tell the tale.Messenger.O King, when morning dawned it blew a gale,But still the English followed, and we fledTill breakers made the dirty waters pale.We saw the Zeeland sandbanks right ahead,Blind in a whirling spray that gave us dread;For we were blown there, and the water shoaled.The crying of the leadsmen at the lead,Calling the soundings, were our death-bells tolled.We drifted down to death upon the sands;The English drew away to watch us drown;We saw the bitter breakers with grey handsTear the dead body of the sandbank brown.We could do nothing, so we drifted downSinging the psalms for death; we who had beenLords of the sea and knights of great renown,Doomed to be strangled by a death unclean.Philip.So there the ships were wrecked?Messenger.Time had not struck.O King, we learned how blessed mercy saves:Even as our forefoot grounded on the muck,Tripping us up to drown us in the waves,A sudden windshift snatched us from our gravesAnd drove us north; and now another woe,Tempest unending, beat our ships to staves—A never-dying gale with frost and snow.Now our hearts failed, for food and water failed;The men fell sick by troops, the wounded died.They washed about the wet decks as we sailedFor want of strength to lift them overside.Desolate seas we sailed, so grim, so wide,That ship by ship our comrades disappeared.With neither sun nor star to be a guide,Like spirits of the wretched dead we steered.Till, having beaten through the Pentland Pass,We saw the Irish surf, with mists of sprayBlowing far inland, blasting trees and grass,And gave God thanks, for we espied a baySafe, with bright water running down the clay—A running brook where we could drink and drink.But drawing near, our ships were cast away,Bilged on the rocks; we saw our comrades sink....Or worse: for those the breakers cast ashoreThe Irish killed and stripped; their bodies whiteLay naked to the wolves—yea, sixty score—All down the windy beach, a piteous sight.The savage Irish watched by bonfire lightLest more should come ashore; we heard them thereScreaming the bloody news of their delight.Then we abandoned hope and new despair.And now the fleet is sunken in the sea,And all the seamen, all the might of Spain,Are dead, O King, and out of misery,Never to drag at frozen ropes again.Never to know defeat, nor feel the painOf watching dear companions sink and die.Death’s everlasting armistice to the brainGives their poor griefs quietus; let them lie.I, like a ghost returning from the grave,Come from a stricken ship to tell the newsOf Spanish honour which we could not save,Nor win again, nor even die to lose;And since God’s hidden wisdom loves to bruiseThose whom He loves, we, trembling in despair,Will watch our griefs to see God’s finger there,And make His will our solace and excuse.Defeat is bitter and the truth is hard—Spain is defeated, England has prevailed;This is the banner which I could not guard,And this the consecrated sword which failed.Do with your dying Captain as you will.(He lays down sword and banner.)Philip.I, from my heart, thank God, from whose great handI am so helped with power, I can stillSet out another fleet against that land.Nor do I think it illIf all the running water takes its courseWhile there are unspent fountains at the source.He sendeth out His word and melteth them.Take back your standard, Captain. As you go,Bid the bells toll and let the clergy come.Then in the city by the strike of drumProclaim a general fast. In bitter daysThe soul finds God, God us.(ExitCaptain.)Philip(Alone).De Leyva, friend,Whom I shall never see, never again,This misery that I feel is over Spain.O God, beloved God, in pity sendThat blessed rose among the thorns, an end:Give a bruised spirit peace.(He kneels. A muffled march of the drums.)Curtain.
Messenger.This gold chain ...Bears the twelve badges of the strength of SpainOnce linked in glory, Philip, but now loosed.(Detaching link from link.)Castilla, Leon, Aragon, and these,Palestine, Portugal, the Sicilies,Navarre, Granada, the Valencian State,The Indies, East and West, the Archducate,The Western Mainland in the Ocean Sea.Those who upheld their strength have ceased to be.I, who am dying, King, have seen their graves.Philip, your Navy is beneath the waves.Philip.He who in bounty gives in wisdom takes.Messenger.O King, forgive me, for my spirit breaks;I saw those beaches where the Grange descendsWhite with unburied corpses of stripped friends.Philip.I grieve that Spain’s disaster brings such loss.Messenger.From Pentland to the Groyne the tempests tossUnshriven Spaniards driving with the tide.They were my lovely friends and they have died,Far from wind-broken Biscay, far from home,With no anointing chrism but the foam.Philip.The dead will rise from unsuspected slime;God’s chosen will be gathered in God’s time.Messenger.King, they died helpless; our unwieldy fleetMade such a target to the English gunsThat we were riddled through like sifted wheat.We never came to grappling with them once.They raked us from a distance, and then ran.Each village throughout Spain has lost a man;The widows in the seaports fill the streets.Philip.Uncertain chance decides the fate of fleets.Messenger.Now the North Sea is haunted for all timeBy miserable souls whose dying wordsCursed the too proud adventure as a crime.Our broken galleons house the gannet-birds.The Irish burn our Captain’s bones for lime.O misery that the might of England wrought!Philip.Christ is the only remedy for thoughtWhen the mind sickens. We are pieces played,Not moving as we will, but as we are made;Beaten and spurred at times like stubborn steeds,That we may go God’s way. Your spirit bleeds,Having been proved in trouble past her strength.Give me the roll in all its ghastly length.Which of my friends survive, if any live?Messenger.Some have survived, but all are fugitive.Your Admiral in command is living still;Michæl Oquendo too, though he is ill,Dying of broken heart and bitter shame.Valdes is prisoner, Manrique the same.Philip.God willed the matter; they are not to blame.Thank God that they are living. Name the rest.Messenger.They are all dead ... with him you loved the best.Philip.I dreamed De Leyva died, so it is true?Messenger.Drowned on the Irish coast with all his crew.After enduring dying many daysThe sea has given him quiet. Many waysLead men to death, and he a hard one trod,Bearing much misery, like a knight of God.Philip.Amen. Go on.Messenger.Hugh de Moncada died,Shot in his burning ship by Calais side,Cheering his men to save her. PimentelSank in a galleon shambled like a hellRather than yield, and in a whirl of flamesPedro Mendoza, Captain of St. James,Stood with Don Philip thrusting boarders backTill their Toledan armour was burnt black,And both their helms ran blood. And there they fell,Shot down to bleed to death. They perished well,Happy to die in battle for their KingBefore defeat had fallen on their friends;Happier than most, for where the merrows singParedes and his brother met their ends,And Don Alarcon, cast alive ashore,Was killed and stripped and hanged upon a tree.And young Mendoza, whom the flagship bore,Died of starvation and of misery.But hundreds perished, King; why mention these?Battle and hunger, heart-break, and the seasHave overwhelmed the chivalry of Spain.Philip.Misfortune, after effort, brings no stain.Perhaps I underjudged the English fleet.How was it that the Spaniards met defeat?What evil fortune brought about our fall?Messenger.Their sailors and their cannon did it all.Philip.Yet when the fleet reached Calais all went well.Messenger.Our woes began there.Philip.Tell me what befell.Messenger.We were to ship the troops in Calais Road;They lay encamped, prepared to go aboard.To windward still the English fleet abode—Still as in port when peace has been restored.The wind and sea were fair,We lay at anchor there;The stars burned in the air,The men were sleeping,When in the midnight darkOur watchman saw a sparkSuddenly light a barkWith long flames leaping.Then, as they stood amazed,Others and other blazed;Then terror set them crazed,They ran down screaming:“Fire-ships are coming! Wake!Cast loose, for Jesus’ sake!Eight fire-ships come from Drake—Look at their gleaming!”Roused in the dark from bed,We saw the fire show red,And instant panic spreadThrough troops and sailors;They swarmed on deck unclad,They did what terror bade,King, they were like the madEscaped from jailers.Some prayed for mercy, someRang bells or beat the drum,As though despair had comeAt hell’s contriving;Captains with terror paleScreamed through the dark their hail,“Cut cable, loose the sail,And set all driving!”Heading all ways at once,Grinding each other’s guns,Our blundering galleonsAthwart-hawse galleys,Timbers and plankings cleft,And half our tackling reft,Your grand Armada leftThe roads of Calais.Weary and overwroughtWe strove to make all taut;But when the morning broughtThe dawn to light us,Drake, with the weather gage,Made signal to engage,And, like a pard in rage,Bore down to fight us.Nobly the English lineTrampled the bubbled brine,We heard the gun-trucks whineTo the taut laniard.Onwards we saw them forge,White-billowing at the gorge.“On, on!” they cried, “St. George!Down with the Spaniard!”From their van squadron brokeA withering battle-stroke,Tearing our plankèd oakBy straiks asunder,Blasting the wood like rotWith such a hail of shot,So constant and so hotIt beat us under.The English would not close;They fought us as they chose,Dealing us deadly blowsFor seven hours.Lords of our chiefest rankThe bitter billow drank,For there the English sankThree ships of ours.* * * *Then the wind forced us northward from the fight;We could not ship the army nor return;We held the sea in trouble through the night,Watching the English signals blink and burn.The English in a dim cloud kept astern;All night they signalled, while our shattered shipsHuddled like beasts beneath the drovers’ whips.* * * *At dawn the same wind held; we could not strive.The English drove us north as herdsmen drive.* * * *Under our tattered flags,With rigging cut to rags,Our ships like stricken stagsWere heaped and hounded.Caught by the unknown tide,With neither chart nor guide,We fouled the Holland side,Where four more grounded.Our water-casks were burst,The horses died of thirst,The wounded raved and curst,Uncared, untended.All night we heard the cryingOf lonely shipmates dying;We had to leave them lying.So the fight ended.Philip.God gives His victory as He wills. But thisWas not complete destruction. What thing worseCame to destroy you?Messenger.An avenging curse,Due for old sins, destroyed us.Philip.Tell the tale.Messenger.O King, when morning dawned it blew a gale,But still the English followed, and we fledTill breakers made the dirty waters pale.We saw the Zeeland sandbanks right ahead,Blind in a whirling spray that gave us dread;For we were blown there, and the water shoaled.The crying of the leadsmen at the lead,Calling the soundings, were our death-bells tolled.We drifted down to death upon the sands;The English drew away to watch us drown;We saw the bitter breakers with grey handsTear the dead body of the sandbank brown.We could do nothing, so we drifted downSinging the psalms for death; we who had beenLords of the sea and knights of great renown,Doomed to be strangled by a death unclean.Philip.So there the ships were wrecked?Messenger.Time had not struck.O King, we learned how blessed mercy saves:Even as our forefoot grounded on the muck,Tripping us up to drown us in the waves,A sudden windshift snatched us from our gravesAnd drove us north; and now another woe,Tempest unending, beat our ships to staves—A never-dying gale with frost and snow.Now our hearts failed, for food and water failed;The men fell sick by troops, the wounded died.They washed about the wet decks as we sailedFor want of strength to lift them overside.Desolate seas we sailed, so grim, so wide,That ship by ship our comrades disappeared.With neither sun nor star to be a guide,Like spirits of the wretched dead we steered.Till, having beaten through the Pentland Pass,We saw the Irish surf, with mists of sprayBlowing far inland, blasting trees and grass,And gave God thanks, for we espied a baySafe, with bright water running down the clay—A running brook where we could drink and drink.But drawing near, our ships were cast away,Bilged on the rocks; we saw our comrades sink....Or worse: for those the breakers cast ashoreThe Irish killed and stripped; their bodies whiteLay naked to the wolves—yea, sixty score—All down the windy beach, a piteous sight.The savage Irish watched by bonfire lightLest more should come ashore; we heard them thereScreaming the bloody news of their delight.Then we abandoned hope and new despair.And now the fleet is sunken in the sea,And all the seamen, all the might of Spain,Are dead, O King, and out of misery,Never to drag at frozen ropes again.Never to know defeat, nor feel the painOf watching dear companions sink and die.Death’s everlasting armistice to the brainGives their poor griefs quietus; let them lie.I, like a ghost returning from the grave,Come from a stricken ship to tell the newsOf Spanish honour which we could not save,Nor win again, nor even die to lose;And since God’s hidden wisdom loves to bruiseThose whom He loves, we, trembling in despair,Will watch our griefs to see God’s finger there,And make His will our solace and excuse.Defeat is bitter and the truth is hard—Spain is defeated, England has prevailed;This is the banner which I could not guard,And this the consecrated sword which failed.Do with your dying Captain as you will.(He lays down sword and banner.)Philip.I, from my heart, thank God, from whose great handI am so helped with power, I can stillSet out another fleet against that land.Nor do I think it illIf all the running water takes its courseWhile there are unspent fountains at the source.He sendeth out His word and melteth them.Take back your standard, Captain. As you go,Bid the bells toll and let the clergy come.Then in the city by the strike of drumProclaim a general fast. In bitter daysThe soul finds God, God us.(ExitCaptain.)Philip(Alone).De Leyva, friend,Whom I shall never see, never again,This misery that I feel is over Spain.O God, beloved God, in pity sendThat blessed rose among the thorns, an end:Give a bruised spirit peace.(He kneels. A muffled march of the drums.)Curtain.
Messenger.
This gold chain ...Bears the twelve badges of the strength of SpainOnce linked in glory, Philip, but now loosed.(Detaching link from link.)Castilla, Leon, Aragon, and these,Palestine, Portugal, the Sicilies,Navarre, Granada, the Valencian State,The Indies, East and West, the Archducate,The Western Mainland in the Ocean Sea.Those who upheld their strength have ceased to be.I, who am dying, King, have seen their graves.Philip, your Navy is beneath the waves.
Philip.
He who in bounty gives in wisdom takes.
Messenger.
O King, forgive me, for my spirit breaks;I saw those beaches where the Grange descendsWhite with unburied corpses of stripped friends.
Philip.
I grieve that Spain’s disaster brings such loss.
Messenger.
From Pentland to the Groyne the tempests tossUnshriven Spaniards driving with the tide.They were my lovely friends and they have died,Far from wind-broken Biscay, far from home,With no anointing chrism but the foam.
Philip.
The dead will rise from unsuspected slime;God’s chosen will be gathered in God’s time.
Messenger.
King, they died helpless; our unwieldy fleetMade such a target to the English gunsThat we were riddled through like sifted wheat.We never came to grappling with them once.They raked us from a distance, and then ran.Each village throughout Spain has lost a man;The widows in the seaports fill the streets.
Philip.
Uncertain chance decides the fate of fleets.
Messenger.
Now the North Sea is haunted for all timeBy miserable souls whose dying wordsCursed the too proud adventure as a crime.Our broken galleons house the gannet-birds.The Irish burn our Captain’s bones for lime.O misery that the might of England wrought!
Philip.
Christ is the only remedy for thoughtWhen the mind sickens. We are pieces played,Not moving as we will, but as we are made;Beaten and spurred at times like stubborn steeds,That we may go God’s way. Your spirit bleeds,Having been proved in trouble past her strength.Give me the roll in all its ghastly length.Which of my friends survive, if any live?
Messenger.
Some have survived, but all are fugitive.Your Admiral in command is living still;Michæl Oquendo too, though he is ill,Dying of broken heart and bitter shame.Valdes is prisoner, Manrique the same.
Philip.
God willed the matter; they are not to blame.Thank God that they are living. Name the rest.
Messenger.
They are all dead ... with him you loved the best.
Philip.
I dreamed De Leyva died, so it is true?
Messenger.
Drowned on the Irish coast with all his crew.After enduring dying many daysThe sea has given him quiet. Many waysLead men to death, and he a hard one trod,Bearing much misery, like a knight of God.
Philip.
Amen. Go on.
Messenger.
Hugh de Moncada died,Shot in his burning ship by Calais side,Cheering his men to save her. PimentelSank in a galleon shambled like a hellRather than yield, and in a whirl of flamesPedro Mendoza, Captain of St. James,Stood with Don Philip thrusting boarders backTill their Toledan armour was burnt black,And both their helms ran blood. And there they fell,Shot down to bleed to death. They perished well,Happy to die in battle for their KingBefore defeat had fallen on their friends;Happier than most, for where the merrows singParedes and his brother met their ends,And Don Alarcon, cast alive ashore,Was killed and stripped and hanged upon a tree.And young Mendoza, whom the flagship bore,Died of starvation and of misery.But hundreds perished, King; why mention these?Battle and hunger, heart-break, and the seasHave overwhelmed the chivalry of Spain.
Philip.
Misfortune, after effort, brings no stain.Perhaps I underjudged the English fleet.How was it that the Spaniards met defeat?What evil fortune brought about our fall?
Messenger.
Their sailors and their cannon did it all.
Philip.
Yet when the fleet reached Calais all went well.
Messenger.
Our woes began there.
Philip.
Tell me what befell.
Messenger.
We were to ship the troops in Calais Road;They lay encamped, prepared to go aboard.To windward still the English fleet abode—Still as in port when peace has been restored.
The wind and sea were fair,We lay at anchor there;The stars burned in the air,The men were sleeping,When in the midnight darkOur watchman saw a sparkSuddenly light a barkWith long flames leaping.
Then, as they stood amazed,Others and other blazed;Then terror set them crazed,They ran down screaming:“Fire-ships are coming! Wake!Cast loose, for Jesus’ sake!Eight fire-ships come from Drake—Look at their gleaming!”
Roused in the dark from bed,We saw the fire show red,And instant panic spreadThrough troops and sailors;They swarmed on deck unclad,They did what terror bade,King, they were like the madEscaped from jailers.
Some prayed for mercy, someRang bells or beat the drum,As though despair had comeAt hell’s contriving;Captains with terror paleScreamed through the dark their hail,“Cut cable, loose the sail,And set all driving!”
Heading all ways at once,Grinding each other’s guns,Our blundering galleonsAthwart-hawse galleys,Timbers and plankings cleft,And half our tackling reft,Your grand Armada leftThe roads of Calais.
Weary and overwroughtWe strove to make all taut;But when the morning broughtThe dawn to light us,Drake, with the weather gage,Made signal to engage,And, like a pard in rage,Bore down to fight us.
Nobly the English lineTrampled the bubbled brine,We heard the gun-trucks whineTo the taut laniard.Onwards we saw them forge,White-billowing at the gorge.“On, on!” they cried, “St. George!Down with the Spaniard!”
From their van squadron brokeA withering battle-stroke,Tearing our plankèd oakBy straiks asunder,Blasting the wood like rotWith such a hail of shot,So constant and so hotIt beat us under.
The English would not close;They fought us as they chose,Dealing us deadly blowsFor seven hours.Lords of our chiefest rankThe bitter billow drank,For there the English sankThree ships of ours.* * * *Then the wind forced us northward from the fight;We could not ship the army nor return;We held the sea in trouble through the night,Watching the English signals blink and burn.The English in a dim cloud kept astern;All night they signalled, while our shattered shipsHuddled like beasts beneath the drovers’ whips.* * * *At dawn the same wind held; we could not strive.The English drove us north as herdsmen drive.* * * *Under our tattered flags,With rigging cut to rags,Our ships like stricken stagsWere heaped and hounded.Caught by the unknown tide,With neither chart nor guide,We fouled the Holland side,Where four more grounded.
Our water-casks were burst,The horses died of thirst,The wounded raved and curst,Uncared, untended.All night we heard the cryingOf lonely shipmates dying;We had to leave them lying.So the fight ended.
Philip.
God gives His victory as He wills. But thisWas not complete destruction. What thing worseCame to destroy you?
Messenger.
An avenging curse,Due for old sins, destroyed us.
Philip.
Tell the tale.
Messenger.
O King, when morning dawned it blew a gale,But still the English followed, and we fledTill breakers made the dirty waters pale.We saw the Zeeland sandbanks right ahead,Blind in a whirling spray that gave us dread;For we were blown there, and the water shoaled.The crying of the leadsmen at the lead,Calling the soundings, were our death-bells tolled.We drifted down to death upon the sands;The English drew away to watch us drown;We saw the bitter breakers with grey handsTear the dead body of the sandbank brown.We could do nothing, so we drifted downSinging the psalms for death; we who had beenLords of the sea and knights of great renown,Doomed to be strangled by a death unclean.
Philip.
So there the ships were wrecked?
Messenger.
Time had not struck.O King, we learned how blessed mercy saves:Even as our forefoot grounded on the muck,Tripping us up to drown us in the waves,A sudden windshift snatched us from our gravesAnd drove us north; and now another woe,Tempest unending, beat our ships to staves—A never-dying gale with frost and snow.
Now our hearts failed, for food and water failed;The men fell sick by troops, the wounded died.They washed about the wet decks as we sailedFor want of strength to lift them overside.Desolate seas we sailed, so grim, so wide,That ship by ship our comrades disappeared.With neither sun nor star to be a guide,Like spirits of the wretched dead we steered.
Till, having beaten through the Pentland Pass,We saw the Irish surf, with mists of sprayBlowing far inland, blasting trees and grass,And gave God thanks, for we espied a baySafe, with bright water running down the clay—A running brook where we could drink and drink.But drawing near, our ships were cast away,Bilged on the rocks; we saw our comrades sink....
Or worse: for those the breakers cast ashoreThe Irish killed and stripped; their bodies whiteLay naked to the wolves—yea, sixty score—All down the windy beach, a piteous sight.The savage Irish watched by bonfire lightLest more should come ashore; we heard them thereScreaming the bloody news of their delight.Then we abandoned hope and new despair.
And now the fleet is sunken in the sea,And all the seamen, all the might of Spain,Are dead, O King, and out of misery,Never to drag at frozen ropes again.Never to know defeat, nor feel the painOf watching dear companions sink and die.Death’s everlasting armistice to the brainGives their poor griefs quietus; let them lie.
I, like a ghost returning from the grave,Come from a stricken ship to tell the newsOf Spanish honour which we could not save,Nor win again, nor even die to lose;And since God’s hidden wisdom loves to bruiseThose whom He loves, we, trembling in despair,Will watch our griefs to see God’s finger there,And make His will our solace and excuse.
Defeat is bitter and the truth is hard—Spain is defeated, England has prevailed;This is the banner which I could not guard,And this the consecrated sword which failed.Do with your dying Captain as you will.(He lays down sword and banner.)
Philip.
I, from my heart, thank God, from whose great handI am so helped with power, I can stillSet out another fleet against that land.Nor do I think it illIf all the running water takes its courseWhile there are unspent fountains at the source.
He sendeth out His word and melteth them.Take back your standard, Captain. As you go,Bid the bells toll and let the clergy come.Then in the city by the strike of drumProclaim a general fast. In bitter daysThe soul finds God, God us.(ExitCaptain.)
Philip(Alone).
De Leyva, friend,Whom I shall never see, never again,This misery that I feel is over Spain.O God, beloved God, in pity sendThat blessed rose among the thorns, an end:Give a bruised spirit peace.(He kneels. A muffled march of the drums.)
Curtain.
Man with his burning soulHas but an hour of breathTo build a ship of truthIn which his soul may sail.Sail on the sea of death,For death takes tollOf beauty, courage, youth,Of all but truth.Life’s city ways are dark,Men mutter by; the wellsOf the great waters moan.O death! O sea! O tide!The waters moan like bells;No light, no mark,The soul goes out aloneOn seas unknown.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 madeMay see night fade.
Man with his burning soulHas but an hour of breathTo build a ship of truthIn which his soul may sail.Sail on the sea of death,For death takes tollOf beauty, courage, youth,Of all but truth.Life’s city ways are dark,Men mutter by; the wellsOf the great waters moan.O death! O sea! O tide!The waters moan like bells;No light, no mark,The soul goes out aloneOn seas unknown.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 madeMay see night fade.
Man with his burning soulHas but an hour of breathTo build a ship of truthIn which his soul may sail.Sail on the sea of death,For death takes tollOf beauty, courage, youth,Of all but truth.
Life’s city ways are dark,Men mutter by; the wellsOf the great waters moan.O death! O sea! O tide!The waters moan like bells;No light, no mark,The soul goes out aloneOn seas unknown.
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 madeMay see night fade.
All day they loitered by the resting ships,Telling their beauties over, taking stock;At night the verdict left my messmates’ lips,“TheWandereris the finest ship in dock.”I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned,Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean,Saying, “TheWanderer, clipper, outward bound,The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen—“Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail.She sails at sunrise”: but the morrow showedNoWanderersetting forth for me to hail;Far down the stream men pointed where she rode,Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim,Already gone before the stars were gone.I saw her at the sea-line’s smoky rimGrow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on.Soon even her masts were hidden in the hazeBeyond the city; she was on her courseTo trample billows for a hundred days;That afternoon the norther gathered force,Blowing a small snow from a point of east.“Oh, fair for her,” we said, “to take her south.”And in our spirits, as the wind increased,We saw her there, beyond the river mouth,Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark,To glint upon mad water, while the galeRoared like a battle, snapping like a shark,And drunken seamen struggled with the sail.While with sick hearts her mates put out of mindTheir little children left astern, ashore,And the gale’s gathering made the darkness blind,Water and air one intermingled roar.Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played,Dancing and singing held our merry crew;The old ship moaned a little as she swayed.It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew!So that at midnight I was called on deckTo keep an anchor-watch: I heard the seaRoar past in white procession filled with wreck;Intense bright frosty stars burned over me,And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped,White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock,Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped;Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock.And like a never-dying force, the windRoared till we shouted with it, roared untilIts vast vitality of wrath was thinned,Had beat its fury breathless and was still.By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw,A glorious morning followed: with my friendI climbed the fo’c’s’le-head to see; we sawThe waters hurrying shorewards without end.Haze blotted out the river’s lowest reach;Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by,Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech;Out of the dimness others made reply.And as we watched, there came a rush of feetCharging the fo’c’s’le till the hatchway shook.Men all about us thrust their way, or beat,Crying, “TheWanderer! Down the river! Look!”I looked with them towards the dimness; thereGleamed like a spirit striding out of night,A full-rigged ship unutterably fair,Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright.Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool;She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamedThat work of man could be so beautiful,In its own presence and in what it seemed.“So, she is putting back again,” I said.“How white with frost her yards are on the fore.”One of the men about me answer made,“That is not frost, but all her sails are tore,“Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;Her best foul-weather suit gone.” It was true,Her masts were white with rags of tattered sailMany as gannets when the fish are due.Beauty in desolation was her pride,Her crowned array a glory that had been;She faltered tow’rds us like a swan that died,But although ruined she was still a queen.“Put back with all her sails gone,” went the word;Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran,“The sea that stove her boats in killed her third;She has been gutted and has lost a man.”So, as though stepping to a funeral march,She passed defeated homewards whence she came,Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch,A wild bird that misfortune had made tame.She was refitted soon: another tookThe dead man’s office; then the singers hoveHer capstan till the snapping hawsers shook;Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove.Again they towed her seawards, and againWe, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim,Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main,And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim;And wished her well, and wondered, as she died,How, when her canvas had been sheeted home,Her quivering length would sweep into her stride,Making the greenness milky with her foam.But when we rose next morning, we discernedHer beauty once again a shattered thing;Towing to dock theWandererreturned,A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing.A spar was gone, her rigging’s disarrayTold of a worst disaster than the last;Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay,Drooping and beating on the broken mast.Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag;Word went among us how the broken sparHad gored her captain like an angry stag,And killed her mate a half-day from the bar.She passed to dock upon the top of flood.An old man near me shook his head and swore:“Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood—There’ll be no trusting in her any more.”We thought it truth, and when we saw her thereLying in dock, beyond, across the stream,We would forget that we had called her fair,We thought her murderess and the past a dream.And when she sailed again, we watched in awe,Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned,What evil lurked behind the thing we saw,What strength was there that thus annulled man’s hand,How next its triumph would compel man’s willInto compliance with external Fate,How next the powers would use her to work illOn suffering men; we had not long to wait.For soon the outcry of derision rose,“Here comes theWanderer!” the expected cry.Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with thoseYelled from the shipping as they towed her by.She passed us close, her seamen paid no heedTo what was called: they stood, a sullen group,Smoking and spitting, careless of her need,Mocking the orders given from the poop.Her mates and boys were working her; we stared.What was the reason of this strange return,This third annulling of the thing prepared?No outward evil could our eyes discern.Only like someone who has formed a planBeyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed,Mocked and deserted by the common man,Made half divine to me for having failed.We learned the reason soon; below the townA stay had parted like a snapping reed,“Warning,” the men thought, “not to take her down.”They took the omen, they would not proceed.Days passed before another crew would sign.TheWandererlay in dock alone, unmanned,Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign,Bound under curses not to leave the land.But under passing Time fear passes too;That terror passed, the sailors’ hearts grew bold.We learned in time that she had found a crewAnd was bound out and southwards as of old.And in contempt we thought, “A little whileWill bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled.It is herself; she cannot change her style;She has the habit now of being foiled.”So when a ship appeared among the haze,We thought, “TheWandererback again”; but no,NoWanderershowed for many, many days,Her passing lights made other waters glow.But we would often think and talk of her,Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then,Upon what ocean she wasWanderer,Bound to the cities built by foreign men.And one by one our little conclave thinned,Passed into ships and sailed and so away,To drown in some great roaring of the wind,Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune’s prey.And Time went by me making memory dim,Yet still I wondered if theWandererfaredStill pointing to the unreached ocean’s rim,Brightening the water where her breast was bared.And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships,Hoping to see her well-remembered formCome with a curl of bubbles at her lipsBright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm.I never did, and many years went by,Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve,I watched a gale go roaring through the sky,Making the caldrons of the clouds upheave.Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared,Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire;A byre cock cried aloud that morning neared,The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire.And soon men looked upon a glittering earth,Intensely sparkling like a world new-born;Only to look was spiritual birth,So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn.So bright they were, that one could almost passBeyond their twinkling to the source, and knowThe glory pushing in the blade of grass,That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow.That soul was there apparent, not revealed,Unearthly meanings covered every tree,That wet grass grew in an immortal field,Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea.The scarlet berries in the hedge stood outLike revelations but the tongue unknown;Even in the brooks a joy was quick: the troutRushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone.All of the valley was aloud with brooks;I walked the morning, breasting up the fells,Taking again lost childhood from the rooks,Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells.I had not walked that glittering world before,But up the hill a prompting came to me,“This line of upland runs along the shore:Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea.”And on the instant from beyond awayThat long familiar sound, a ship’s bell, brokeThe hush below me in the unseen bay.Old memories came: that inner prompting spoke.And bright above the hedge a seagull’s wingsFlashed and were steady upon empty air.“A Power unseen,” I cried, “prepares these things;“Those are her bells, theWandereris there.”So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down,I saw a mighty bay’s wind-crinkled blueRuffling the image of a tranquil town,With lapsing waters glittering as they grew.And near me in the road the shipping swung,So stately and so still in such great peaceThat like to drooping crests their colours hung,Only their shadows trembled without cease.I did but glance upon those anchored ships.Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain;Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips,Swiftness at pause, theWanderercome again—Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time,Resting the beauty that no seas could tire,Sparkling, as though the midnight’s rain were rime,Like a man’s thought transfigured into fire.And as I looked, one of her men beganTo sing some simple tune of Christmas Day;Among her crew the song spread, man to man,Until the singing rang across the bay;And soon in other anchored ships the menJoined in the singing with clear throats, untilThe farm-boy heard it up the windy glen,Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill.Over the water came the lifted song—Blind pieces in a mighty game we swing;Life’s battle is a conquest for the strong;The meaning shows in the defeated thing.
All day they loitered by the resting ships,Telling their beauties over, taking stock;At night the verdict left my messmates’ lips,“TheWandereris the finest ship in dock.”I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned,Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean,Saying, “TheWanderer, clipper, outward bound,The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen—“Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail.She sails at sunrise”: but the morrow showedNoWanderersetting forth for me to hail;Far down the stream men pointed where she rode,Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim,Already gone before the stars were gone.I saw her at the sea-line’s smoky rimGrow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on.Soon even her masts were hidden in the hazeBeyond the city; she was on her courseTo trample billows for a hundred days;That afternoon the norther gathered force,Blowing a small snow from a point of east.“Oh, fair for her,” we said, “to take her south.”And in our spirits, as the wind increased,We saw her there, beyond the river mouth,Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark,To glint upon mad water, while the galeRoared like a battle, snapping like a shark,And drunken seamen struggled with the sail.While with sick hearts her mates put out of mindTheir little children left astern, ashore,And the gale’s gathering made the darkness blind,Water and air one intermingled roar.Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played,Dancing and singing held our merry crew;The old ship moaned a little as she swayed.It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew!So that at midnight I was called on deckTo keep an anchor-watch: I heard the seaRoar past in white procession filled with wreck;Intense bright frosty stars burned over me,And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped,White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock,Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped;Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock.And like a never-dying force, the windRoared till we shouted with it, roared untilIts vast vitality of wrath was thinned,Had beat its fury breathless and was still.By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw,A glorious morning followed: with my friendI climbed the fo’c’s’le-head to see; we sawThe waters hurrying shorewards without end.Haze blotted out the river’s lowest reach;Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by,Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech;Out of the dimness others made reply.And as we watched, there came a rush of feetCharging the fo’c’s’le till the hatchway shook.Men all about us thrust their way, or beat,Crying, “TheWanderer! Down the river! Look!”I looked with them towards the dimness; thereGleamed like a spirit striding out of night,A full-rigged ship unutterably fair,Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright.Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool;She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamedThat work of man could be so beautiful,In its own presence and in what it seemed.“So, she is putting back again,” I said.“How white with frost her yards are on the fore.”One of the men about me answer made,“That is not frost, but all her sails are tore,“Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;Her best foul-weather suit gone.” It was true,Her masts were white with rags of tattered sailMany as gannets when the fish are due.Beauty in desolation was her pride,Her crowned array a glory that had been;She faltered tow’rds us like a swan that died,But although ruined she was still a queen.“Put back with all her sails gone,” went the word;Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran,“The sea that stove her boats in killed her third;She has been gutted and has lost a man.”So, as though stepping to a funeral march,She passed defeated homewards whence she came,Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch,A wild bird that misfortune had made tame.She was refitted soon: another tookThe dead man’s office; then the singers hoveHer capstan till the snapping hawsers shook;Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove.Again they towed her seawards, and againWe, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim,Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main,And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim;And wished her well, and wondered, as she died,How, when her canvas had been sheeted home,Her quivering length would sweep into her stride,Making the greenness milky with her foam.But when we rose next morning, we discernedHer beauty once again a shattered thing;Towing to dock theWandererreturned,A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing.A spar was gone, her rigging’s disarrayTold of a worst disaster than the last;Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay,Drooping and beating on the broken mast.Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag;Word went among us how the broken sparHad gored her captain like an angry stag,And killed her mate a half-day from the bar.She passed to dock upon the top of flood.An old man near me shook his head and swore:“Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood—There’ll be no trusting in her any more.”We thought it truth, and when we saw her thereLying in dock, beyond, across the stream,We would forget that we had called her fair,We thought her murderess and the past a dream.And when she sailed again, we watched in awe,Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned,What evil lurked behind the thing we saw,What strength was there that thus annulled man’s hand,How next its triumph would compel man’s willInto compliance with external Fate,How next the powers would use her to work illOn suffering men; we had not long to wait.For soon the outcry of derision rose,“Here comes theWanderer!” the expected cry.Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with thoseYelled from the shipping as they towed her by.She passed us close, her seamen paid no heedTo what was called: they stood, a sullen group,Smoking and spitting, careless of her need,Mocking the orders given from the poop.Her mates and boys were working her; we stared.What was the reason of this strange return,This third annulling of the thing prepared?No outward evil could our eyes discern.Only like someone who has formed a planBeyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed,Mocked and deserted by the common man,Made half divine to me for having failed.We learned the reason soon; below the townA stay had parted like a snapping reed,“Warning,” the men thought, “not to take her down.”They took the omen, they would not proceed.Days passed before another crew would sign.TheWandererlay in dock alone, unmanned,Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign,Bound under curses not to leave the land.But under passing Time fear passes too;That terror passed, the sailors’ hearts grew bold.We learned in time that she had found a crewAnd was bound out and southwards as of old.And in contempt we thought, “A little whileWill bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled.It is herself; she cannot change her style;She has the habit now of being foiled.”So when a ship appeared among the haze,We thought, “TheWandererback again”; but no,NoWanderershowed for many, many days,Her passing lights made other waters glow.But we would often think and talk of her,Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then,Upon what ocean she wasWanderer,Bound to the cities built by foreign men.And one by one our little conclave thinned,Passed into ships and sailed and so away,To drown in some great roaring of the wind,Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune’s prey.And Time went by me making memory dim,Yet still I wondered if theWandererfaredStill pointing to the unreached ocean’s rim,Brightening the water where her breast was bared.And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships,Hoping to see her well-remembered formCome with a curl of bubbles at her lipsBright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm.I never did, and many years went by,Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve,I watched a gale go roaring through the sky,Making the caldrons of the clouds upheave.Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared,Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire;A byre cock cried aloud that morning neared,The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire.And soon men looked upon a glittering earth,Intensely sparkling like a world new-born;Only to look was spiritual birth,So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn.So bright they were, that one could almost passBeyond their twinkling to the source, and knowThe glory pushing in the blade of grass,That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow.That soul was there apparent, not revealed,Unearthly meanings covered every tree,That wet grass grew in an immortal field,Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea.The scarlet berries in the hedge stood outLike revelations but the tongue unknown;Even in the brooks a joy was quick: the troutRushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone.All of the valley was aloud with brooks;I walked the morning, breasting up the fells,Taking again lost childhood from the rooks,Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells.I had not walked that glittering world before,But up the hill a prompting came to me,“This line of upland runs along the shore:Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea.”And on the instant from beyond awayThat long familiar sound, a ship’s bell, brokeThe hush below me in the unseen bay.Old memories came: that inner prompting spoke.And bright above the hedge a seagull’s wingsFlashed and were steady upon empty air.“A Power unseen,” I cried, “prepares these things;“Those are her bells, theWandereris there.”So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down,I saw a mighty bay’s wind-crinkled blueRuffling the image of a tranquil town,With lapsing waters glittering as they grew.And near me in the road the shipping swung,So stately and so still in such great peaceThat like to drooping crests their colours hung,Only their shadows trembled without cease.I did but glance upon those anchored ships.Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain;Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips,Swiftness at pause, theWanderercome again—Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time,Resting the beauty that no seas could tire,Sparkling, as though the midnight’s rain were rime,Like a man’s thought transfigured into fire.And as I looked, one of her men beganTo sing some simple tune of Christmas Day;Among her crew the song spread, man to man,Until the singing rang across the bay;And soon in other anchored ships the menJoined in the singing with clear throats, untilThe farm-boy heard it up the windy glen,Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill.Over the water came the lifted song—Blind pieces in a mighty game we swing;Life’s battle is a conquest for the strong;The meaning shows in the defeated thing.
All day they loitered by the resting ships,Telling their beauties over, taking stock;At night the verdict left my messmates’ lips,“TheWandereris the finest ship in dock.”
I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned,Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean,Saying, “TheWanderer, clipper, outward bound,The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen—
“Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail.She sails at sunrise”: but the morrow showedNoWanderersetting forth for me to hail;Far down the stream men pointed where she rode,
Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim,Already gone before the stars were gone.I saw her at the sea-line’s smoky rimGrow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on.
Soon even her masts were hidden in the hazeBeyond the city; she was on her courseTo trample billows for a hundred days;That afternoon the norther gathered force,
Blowing a small snow from a point of east.“Oh, fair for her,” we said, “to take her south.”And in our spirits, as the wind increased,We saw her there, beyond the river mouth,
Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark,To glint upon mad water, while the galeRoared like a battle, snapping like a shark,And drunken seamen struggled with the sail.
While with sick hearts her mates put out of mindTheir little children left astern, ashore,And the gale’s gathering made the darkness blind,Water and air one intermingled roar.
Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played,Dancing and singing held our merry crew;The old ship moaned a little as she swayed.It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew!
So that at midnight I was called on deckTo keep an anchor-watch: I heard the seaRoar past in white procession filled with wreck;Intense bright frosty stars burned over me,
And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped,White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock,Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped;Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock.
And like a never-dying force, the windRoared till we shouted with it, roared untilIts vast vitality of wrath was thinned,Had beat its fury breathless and was still.
By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw,A glorious morning followed: with my friendI climbed the fo’c’s’le-head to see; we sawThe waters hurrying shorewards without end.
Haze blotted out the river’s lowest reach;Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by,Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech;Out of the dimness others made reply.
And as we watched, there came a rush of feetCharging the fo’c’s’le till the hatchway shook.Men all about us thrust their way, or beat,Crying, “TheWanderer! Down the river! Look!”
I looked with them towards the dimness; thereGleamed like a spirit striding out of night,A full-rigged ship unutterably fair,Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright.
Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool;She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamedThat work of man could be so beautiful,In its own presence and in what it seemed.
“So, she is putting back again,” I said.“How white with frost her yards are on the fore.”One of the men about me answer made,“That is not frost, but all her sails are tore,
“Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;Her best foul-weather suit gone.” It was true,Her masts were white with rags of tattered sailMany as gannets when the fish are due.
Beauty in desolation was her pride,Her crowned array a glory that had been;She faltered tow’rds us like a swan that died,But although ruined she was still a queen.
“Put back with all her sails gone,” went the word;Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran,“The sea that stove her boats in killed her third;She has been gutted and has lost a man.”
So, as though stepping to a funeral march,She passed defeated homewards whence she came,Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch,A wild bird that misfortune had made tame.
She was refitted soon: another tookThe dead man’s office; then the singers hoveHer capstan till the snapping hawsers shook;Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove.
Again they towed her seawards, and againWe, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim,Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main,And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim;
And wished her well, and wondered, as she died,How, when her canvas had been sheeted home,Her quivering length would sweep into her stride,Making the greenness milky with her foam.
But when we rose next morning, we discernedHer beauty once again a shattered thing;Towing to dock theWandererreturned,A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing.
A spar was gone, her rigging’s disarrayTold of a worst disaster than the last;Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay,Drooping and beating on the broken mast.
Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag;Word went among us how the broken sparHad gored her captain like an angry stag,And killed her mate a half-day from the bar.
She passed to dock upon the top of flood.An old man near me shook his head and swore:“Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood—There’ll be no trusting in her any more.”
We thought it truth, and when we saw her thereLying in dock, beyond, across the stream,We would forget that we had called her fair,We thought her murderess and the past a dream.
And when she sailed again, we watched in awe,Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned,What evil lurked behind the thing we saw,What strength was there that thus annulled man’s hand,
How next its triumph would compel man’s willInto compliance with external Fate,How next the powers would use her to work illOn suffering men; we had not long to wait.
For soon the outcry of derision rose,“Here comes theWanderer!” the expected cry.Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with thoseYelled from the shipping as they towed her by.
She passed us close, her seamen paid no heedTo what was called: they stood, a sullen group,Smoking and spitting, careless of her need,Mocking the orders given from the poop.
Her mates and boys were working her; we stared.What was the reason of this strange return,This third annulling of the thing prepared?No outward evil could our eyes discern.
Only like someone who has formed a planBeyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed,Mocked and deserted by the common man,Made half divine to me for having failed.
We learned the reason soon; below the townA stay had parted like a snapping reed,“Warning,” the men thought, “not to take her down.”They took the omen, they would not proceed.
Days passed before another crew would sign.TheWandererlay in dock alone, unmanned,Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign,Bound under curses not to leave the land.
But under passing Time fear passes too;That terror passed, the sailors’ hearts grew bold.We learned in time that she had found a crewAnd was bound out and southwards as of old.
And in contempt we thought, “A little whileWill bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled.It is herself; she cannot change her style;She has the habit now of being foiled.”
So when a ship appeared among the haze,We thought, “TheWandererback again”; but no,NoWanderershowed for many, many days,Her passing lights made other waters glow.
But we would often think and talk of her,Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then,Upon what ocean she wasWanderer,Bound to the cities built by foreign men.
And one by one our little conclave thinned,Passed into ships and sailed and so away,To drown in some great roaring of the wind,Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune’s prey.
And Time went by me making memory dim,Yet still I wondered if theWandererfaredStill pointing to the unreached ocean’s rim,Brightening the water where her breast was bared.
And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships,Hoping to see her well-remembered formCome with a curl of bubbles at her lipsBright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm.
I never did, and many years went by,Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve,I watched a gale go roaring through the sky,Making the caldrons of the clouds upheave.
Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared,Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire;A byre cock cried aloud that morning neared,The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire.
And soon men looked upon a glittering earth,Intensely sparkling like a world new-born;Only to look was spiritual birth,So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn.
So bright they were, that one could almost passBeyond their twinkling to the source, and knowThe glory pushing in the blade of grass,That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow.
That soul was there apparent, not revealed,Unearthly meanings covered every tree,That wet grass grew in an immortal field,Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea.
The scarlet berries in the hedge stood outLike revelations but the tongue unknown;Even in the brooks a joy was quick: the troutRushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone.
All of the valley was aloud with brooks;I walked the morning, breasting up the fells,Taking again lost childhood from the rooks,Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells.
I had not walked that glittering world before,But up the hill a prompting came to me,“This line of upland runs along the shore:Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea.”
And on the instant from beyond awayThat long familiar sound, a ship’s bell, brokeThe hush below me in the unseen bay.Old memories came: that inner prompting spoke.
And bright above the hedge a seagull’s wingsFlashed and were steady upon empty air.“A Power unseen,” I cried, “prepares these things;“Those are her bells, theWandereris there.”
So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down,I saw a mighty bay’s wind-crinkled blueRuffling the image of a tranquil town,With lapsing waters glittering as they grew.
And near me in the road the shipping swung,So stately and so still in such great peaceThat like to drooping crests their colours hung,Only their shadows trembled without cease.
I did but glance upon those anchored ships.Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain;Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips,Swiftness at pause, theWanderercome again—
Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time,Resting the beauty that no seas could tire,Sparkling, as though the midnight’s rain were rime,Like a man’s thought transfigured into fire.
And as I looked, one of her men beganTo sing some simple tune of Christmas Day;Among her crew the song spread, man to man,Until the singing rang across the bay;
And soon in other anchored ships the menJoined in the singing with clear throats, untilThe farm-boy heard it up the windy glen,Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill.
Over the water came the lifted song—Blind pieces in a mighty game we swing;Life’s battle is a conquest for the strong;The meaning shows in the defeated thing.