AT PORTSMOUTHThe great ships in the harbourSit silent on the tide,And in the sea beneath themTheir gloomy shadows ride.There is no life, no beauty,No grace the heart can feel,In those irenic monsters—Those hideous forms of steel.It is old England's squadron,Her constant watch and ward—The bulwark of her freedom,The Channel's matchless guard.How different from the frigatesThat bore the dauntless Blake;How different from the linersThat roared in Nelson's wake!Majestic then and loftyThey towered above the deep,Bestowing beauty on the mainTheir forms were framed to keep.Sail over sail they offeredTheir canvas to the wind,That mimicked in its whitenessThe wake they swept behind.No wonder kingly seamenWere bred in ships like those;No wonder that they made themA terror to their foes.For in the grace and beautyThey shed upon the seaMan found the inspirationThat kept him brave and free.And man and ship togetherPlayed well that noble part,Until their oaken sides becameA symbol for his heart.But look! where black and formlessThose modern monsters rideA blot upon the seascape,A load upon the tide.Hark! from the massive flagshipBreathes out the morning gun;Exultant in its missionHer ensign meets the sun.From battle-ship and cruiser,From merchantman and fort,The cross of red makes gloriousThe strong and ancient port.Then with a heart that followsI turn my eager eyesTo where at honored mooringsThe grand old victor lies.There floats the same proud buntingShe swept along the breezeThe day that France was brokenAnd driven from the seas.There in prophetic splendorIt crowns her shapely spar,The promise of a future—The final Trafalgar.AT ANCHOR.Sights of sail are caught on the edge—Black coasters waiting the flood;Nest of spars that stroke like the sedgeLong rivers of sunset blood.Gleam of lamps low down in the west,Gulls crying over the bar,Sea as still as a child at breast,Moon following up a star.That is to-night—and our own to twistRound memory's finger and hold,As guerdon for those we've lost or missedWhile fretting and fighting for gold.FROM THE CLIFF.The wind is fresh, the wind is foul;The clouds are long and low and gray;The rocky headland wears a cowl,And looks a monk who kneels to prayAnd tell his beads for parting souls:While out beyond the bar there rollsA sullen swell, and white and highAlong the cliffs the breakers fly.Roar, roar, O Sea! Thy stormy songAppalls the weak, but nerves the strong.Look! yonder bark with puffing sailHas turned her bow to win the sea;She fears to meet the rising galeWith reef and rockland on her lee.And as she luffs the blast to greet,By halyard, clew, and straining sheet,All, all, alert her seamen stand,And watch with anxious eye the land.Roar, roar, O Sea! Thy stormy songAppalls the weak, but nerves the strong.Then tack on tack she weathers out—Her topsails shiver in the wind;Down goes the helm, she flies about,And leaping off soon leaves behindThe rocky dangers, and has pastThe headland, when the wrathful blast,Bursts from the cloud and wild and grandHurls in the sea against the land.Roar, roar, O Sea! Thy stormy songAppalls the weak, but nerves the strong.THEN AND NOW.The wind has changed to happy south,The tide is setting free,As one by one, past harbor mouth,Our ships stand out to sea.We watch them pass, my love and I;We shout Halloo! from shore.Good-bye! Good-bye! the sailors cry;Good-bye! the breakers roar.The wind has turned to icy north,Full bitterly it blows;The sea is wroth, and white with froth,And no ship comes or goes.We watch for them, my love and I;We linger on the shore.The breakers cry Ho! ho! Good-bye!—Good-bye for evermore.THE SHIPS.Sing the sea, sing the ships,Sing the sea and its ships,With the lightness and the brightnessOf the foam about their lips;When reaching off to seaward,When running down to leeward,When beating up to port with the pilot at the fore;When racing down the Trade,Or ratching half afraidWith a lookout on the yard for the marks along the shore.Sing them when you frame them,Sing them when you name them,Sing them as you sing the woman whom you love;For the world of life they lose you,For the home that they refuse you,For the sea that deeps beneath them and the sky that crowns above.Sing them when they leave you,Sing them when they grieve you,Going down the harbor with a smoky tug along;With the yards braced this and that,And the anchor at the cat,And the bunting saying good-bye to the watching, waving throng.Sing them when they need you,Sing them when they speed you,With their stems making trouble for the steep Atlantic seas;When the channel as she rollsHeaps the foam along the poles,And the decks fore-and-aft are awash above your knees.Sing them when they spring you,Sing them when they wing you,Rolling down the Trades with a breeze that never shifts;When the crew they quite forgetWhat is meant by cold and wet,And the feel of the braces and the sheets and the lifts.Sing them when they mock you,Sing them when they shock you,Smothered under topsails with the kingly Horn abeam;When the wind flies round aboutAnd the watch is always out,And all hands are wishing that they'd signed to go in steam.Sing the sea, sing the ships,Sing the sea and its ships,With the molding and the foldingOf the wave about their form;Sing them when they teach us,Sing them when they preach us,A lesson in the calm and a sermon in the storm.Sing them when the dyingWind has left them lyingWith the canvas in the brails a-tremble to the rolls;And the ocean is so stillThat you wonder if it willGive back to her who bore them those legions of lost souls.Sing the sea, sing the ships,Sing the sea and its ships,With the forming and the stormingOf the wave athwart their bows;Sing them when you clear them,Sing them when you steer them,For the strength that they have givenAnd the courage they arouse.For the nation that forgets them,For the nation that regrets them,Is a nation that is dying as the nations all must die;For there never yet was stateThat met the Roman fateWhile she had a ship to guard her and a sailor to stand by.For the traffic you have won,For the web that you have spun,To catch the flies of commerce and the fleeting gnats of tradeWill be rent and blown away,For the weak will never payTheir earnings to a people who have stamped themselves afraid.Pull down the selfish wall!We are not cowards all!There are some who dare to struggle with the traders of the world.Cast off the nation's chain,And give us back the main,And the flag that's never absent and the sail that's never furled.Sing the sea, sing the ships,Sing the sea and its ships,With the mounding and the poundingOf the wave along their sides;When sailing out and bounding,When towing in and rounding,They drop the anxious anchor and they face the swinging tides.Sing them when you leave themSing them when you heave themTo a fast berth, a last berth beside the knackers quay;For our ships are getting rottenAnd our people have forgottenThe mission of the vessel and the glory of the sea.THE MAN-O'-WAR'S-MAN'S YARN.Down came the corvette on our weather;Then thundered our broadsides together.Thus thus we fought all day;And when the sun set and evening spreadAcross the East her mantle gray,Under our lee she lay,Her decks a mass of dead.Yet at her splintered foremast headHer ensign laughed,Lifting and flapping in the draft,Scorning our shot to bring it down.Our Captain eyed it with a frownTo hide his admiration—Hero himself, he heroes knew,Tho' children of a hated nation.Then to his weary blood-stained crewHe cried:—"To your guns once moreAnd let our broadside roar!"Then hot and close we pliedHer with shot that toreHer fore and aft;Yet still that crimson banner laughed—Yet still her broken, bleeding menGave back our cheers again.We would have spared them then;As with fierce and flashing eyes,With eyes aflame with pride,We looked upon a foeWho for twelve hot hours defiedA vessel twice her size.But Fate thrust in a bloody fistAnd gave our hearts a devilish twist.A random shot that hit our railCame from her foremost gun,And flying in the splinter hailStruck down the oneWhose voice had shaped and cheered the frayThro' all that mad and murderous day.He fell; and for a space we stoodAs though our smoke-grimed forms had turned to wood,The victims of some deadly spell.Silence—save for the feverish groans of theyWho, writhing, dying lay—Was over all; then suddenly there burst a yellThat would have shocked and staggered hell!Ah! you who sit with me to-nightAnd talk of war, of might and right;Had you been there to see that fight,When, reeling down upon the wreck,We boarded, leaping on her deck,And mad with slaughter—mad and blindWith blood of ours, aye, your own kind.We shot and cut, we slewThe remnant of that dauntless crew;And when our pikes had struck the lastTore down that ensign from the mast.Had you been there, I say, to seeThat horror—but, enough for meTo tell, we shuddered at the sightWhen in the chill that follows fightWe gazed upon that slaughter penAnd knew those things as fellow-men.With feverish haste we cleared the deck,Then fired the slowly sinking wreck,And cutting loose stood off astern,And watched her spar and topsides burnTill suddenly a blinding flash;A roar. Silence. Here—there—a splashAnd all was o'er. We filled our yard,Though leaking much and laboring hardStood up for port, and made at lastThe harbor's light. But ho! avastWith tales like this; they breed a thirst—Another glass—my throat is curs'dWith fire. Here's to the gallant tarWho talks of peace, yet longs for war;Who lives to see his ship againDispute the glory of the main,And man for man, and gun for gun,Meet such another dauntless one.A FOGGY MORNING.Seaward driving, like a shrivingGray monk cloaked in gray,Thro' the crowded ship-enshrouded,Buoy-bound reaches of the bay;Misty moving phantoms provingVessels creeping slowly past.Hark! the droning fog-horn moaningFrom the steamer looming vast;Bell-buoy telling when the swellingSwell of ocean rocks its boatWhere the ledge's granite edgesThreaten ships that overfloat;Canvas dripping, dew streams slippingDown the black and swollen gear;Helmsman peering at the steeringCompass thro' a watery blear;Topsails dimming in the swimmingVapor sea that floats o'erhead,And the singing seaman swingingConstantly the pilot lead;Sun uprising with surprisingMystic glory haunts the shroud,Red and rolling thro' the shoalingEastward verges of the cloud;Spars uplifting on the shiftingBillows of the fading mistSeem suspended on extendedRippling ropes of amethyst;Day-star bursting, hotly thirsting,Drains the fog with fervid lips;Sunlight flashing shows us dashingPast the port, the town, the ships.UNKNOWN.Lo! when the sun was half dropt in the west,As wing-weary sea birds seeking their night-rest,They drifted in upon the harbor's breast.None knew from whence they came, or where they sailed;No betraying pennon from their mastheads trailed;They answered not when they were loudly hailed.When the day into the night had diedThey clustered on the ebbing tide,Like sleeping sea swans, side by side.The warders at the midnight hour,Within the shadow of the tower,Watched their lanterns rise and lower.Ere scarce the day and earth had wed,Their oars on either side they spread,Shook out their sails and southward fled.And when the sun shot up across the bay,Naught showed where they had made their stay,Save the broken corals where their anchors lay.So into my heart at eventideOfttimes a fleet of dreams will glide,And all night long at anchor ride.From whence they come, or where they go,What pain or joy their forms foreshow,I dare not ask—I cannot know.But when dawn breaks o'er sea and mart,With rippling oars and yearning sails they start,Leaving their anchor marks upon my heart.THE COASTERS.Overloaded, undermanned,Trusting to a lee;Playing I-spy with the land,Jockeying the sea—That's the way the Coaster goes,Thro' calm and hurricane:Everywhere the tide flows,Everywhere the wind blows,From Mexico to Maine.O East and West! O North and South!We ply along the shore,From famous Fundy's foggy mouth,From voes of Labrador;Thro' pass and strait, on sound and sea,From port to port we stand—The rocks of Race fade on our lee,We hail the Rio Grande.Our sails are never lost to sight;On every gulf and bayThey gleam, in winter wind-cloud white,In summer rain-cloud gray.We hold the coast with slippery grip;We dare from cape to cape;Our leaden fingers feel the dipAnd trace the channel's shape.We sail or bide as serves the tide;Inshore we cheat its flow,And side by side at anchor rideWhen stormy head-winds blow.We are the offspring of the shoal,The hucksters of the sea;From customs theft and pilot toll,Thank God that we are free.Legging on and off the beach,Drifting up the strait,Fluking down the river reach,Towing thro' the Gate—That's the way the Coaster goes,Flirting with the gale:Everywhere the tide flows,Everywhere the wind blows,From York to Beavertail.Here and there to get a load,Freighting anything;Running off with spanker stowed,Loafing wing-a-wing—That's the way the Coaster goes,Chumming with the land:Everywhere the tide flows,Everywhere the wind blows,From Ray to Rio Grande.We split the swell where rings the bellOn many a shallow's edge,We take our flight past many a lightThat guards the deadly ledge,We greet Montauk across the foam,We work the Vineyard Sound,The Diamond sees us running home,The Georges outward bound;Absecom hears our canvas beatWhen tacked off Brigantine,We raise the Gulls with lifted sheet,Pass wing-and-wing between.Off Monomoy we fight the gale,We drift off Sandy Key;The watch of Fenwick sees our sailScud for Henlopen's lee.With decks awash and canvas tornWe wallow up the Stream;We drag dismasted, cargo borne,And fright the ships of steam.Death grips us with his frosty handsIn calm and hurricane;We spill our bones on fifty sandsFrom Mexico to Maine.Cargo reef in main and fore,Manned by half a crew;Romping up the weather shore,Edging down the Blue—That's the way the Coaster goes.Scouting with the lead:Everywhere the tide flows,Everywhere the wind blows,From Cruz to Quoddy Head.TO-DAY.The sea and the sky are in love to-day,Their forms are the forms of one;And ships that sit on the lip of the bay,Coming and going the other way,Are sparks in the sparkling sun.The shape and shadow of yachts that slipEmbayed by the land's long sweepAre phantoms that cover a phantom ship,While out on the shoals the summer gulls dip—To-day is a day asleep.