THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Y
 
 THE LURE OF 
 THE SEA
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 LOVE LIKE THE SEA 
 
 ONE VOL., CR. 8VO, PRICE 6s. 
 
 "The complete impression is that we are outside 
 praise and blame, in the presence of powers of nature 
 which, like the sea, are too strong for man." 
 
 The Times. 
 
 "Whether on land or sea Mr. Patterson holds you 
 spell-bound from the first page to the last of this fine 
 novel." Truth. 
 
 " Mr. Patterson can describe the movement and 
 terror of the waters with peculiar vividness. The 
 characters are real people, the incidents never leave 
 the range of the possible, and the whole story, with its 
 evidence of keen observation and tense feeling holds 
 the reader's attention closely throughout. 'Love Like 
 the Sea ' should serve to strengthen its author's position 
 as one of the chief of our writers of fiction, who are in 
 the best and fullest sense of the word realists." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
 
 THE LURE OF 
 
 THE SEA BY 
 
 J. E. PATTERSON 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 1912
 
 Copyright, 1912
 
 
 To 
 A. St. JOHN ADCOCK. 
 
 My Dear A , 
 
 Nigh thirty years ago, during a glorious and all too 
 brief spell of vagabondage on the coasts of Greece and some 
 of its many islands, I, one golden afternoon, fell asleep in 
 such a bit of 'longshore scenery as I have endeavoured to 
 picture in the first few lines of this attempt to write a poem 
 on a classical subject. In my sleep I dreamt that some 
 ancient pirates beached their galley on the spot, and came 
 ashore to offer a sacrifice to Poseidon. That dream bore 
 me company about the world, peeping to remembrance now 
 and then ; till at last I put it into verse, was disappointed 
 and destroyed the effort in a way, Poseidon's goods given 
 as a burnt offering to Apollo. Then, when I could no more 
 go to sea where, according to all the laws of the appro- 
 priate, such a thing should have been written and was 
 tallying timber on the squalid, ugly dockside in Cardiff, the 
 apparently right moment came* There, in chance minutes 
 of leisure, amid the rattle and clatter, the dirt and the 
 cursing of life on and about a coaling dock, the idea took 
 fresh shape and words. But in the new rendering my 
 dream-pirates were, alas, left out of the scheme. 
 
 Two years or so after that nearly fifteen years since 
 now the poem was issued privately to a number of friends 
 
 *See page 238 of " My Vagabondage." 
 
 626131
 
 and generous admirers, under the title of " The Mermaid : 
 A Lyrical and Descriptive Monologue." On the advice of 
 some of those friends, a dozen copies were subsequently 
 sent to the Press. The result was a far warmer welcome 
 than I had ever dreamt would be given to any poetic effort 
 of mine ; hence my thanks to those kindly critics for their 
 encouragement, and for the opinion that the effort deserved 
 to be more widely known. 
 
 Later on the thought occurred to me that the human 
 side of the story had been too much ignored ; so I returned 
 to my long-neglected pirates, and made changes and addi- 
 tions which amount to about half the present narrative. 
 It is because of these endeavours at improvement that the 
 poem is now republished and offered especially to you ; 
 who will need no persuading that I look neither on it nor 
 on the pieces following it as being of that real poetry of the 
 ocean which we the greatest of maritime nations, and a 
 people with a range of poets equal to those of any other 
 race should have put before the world long ago, yet still 
 show no adequate sign of producing. And, while trying to 
 better that which was deemed to be worthy of high praise 
 and the recognition of those persons who are interested in 
 poetry, I trust that I have not attained to a lessening of 
 its value in the eyes of my friend of these latter days. 
 
 Yours fraternally, 
 
 J. E. P. 
 
 Billericay : January, 1912.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRELUDE: HUNGERINGS ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 DAUGHTERS OF NEREUS ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 THE SHIP (written for music) ... ... ... 64 
 
 " FOAM-FLECKED AND FIERCE" ... ... ... 84 
 
 " ALONE I STRAYED " ... ... ... ... 85 
 
 "THE SEA GIVES FORTH ITS DEAD" ... ... 86 
 
 THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE ... ... ... 88 
 
 THE CRY OF THE SEA ... ... ... ... 89 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE Ocean Kite ... ... ... 92 
 
 TO THE KlTTIWAKE AT THE BRIDGE ... ... 97 
 
 THE PAGAN'S HYMN TO THE SEA ... ... 98 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SAIL ... ... ... ... 99
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 HUNGERINGS 
 
 Warp her out and let her swing across the Bay, with yards 
 
 hauled free ; 
 While the leeward surges sing the day's long dirge on 
 
 Western Sea, 
 Warp her out my soul is sick of traders' petty thoughts 
 
 and pride ; 
 Lay her on the starboard tack, my compass, sextant, chart 
 
 for guide. 
 
 Give, give me back again the God of oceans and of skies ! 
 Give me back the endless spread of space where noble 
 thoughts and prayers may rise. 
 
 Warp her out and set her free earth is home no more 
 
 to me 
 
 Here's suspicion, here is greed ; there is glorious liberty. 
 I would know once more the heave of spacious decks above 
 
 the swell, 
 Feel the salt spray on my face, and hear the winds their 
 
 wild tales tell. 
 
 Give, give me back again the openness of Nature's face ! 
 Give me back the wild sea's roar to stead this empty pride 
 of place !
 
 DAUGHTERS 
 OF NEREUS
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The crew of a pirate galley has put into a small harbour in 
 the ^Egean Sea for water and provisions (Time, about 700 B.C.). 
 After worshipping at an altar of Poseidon, selling some plunder 
 for their immediate wants, drinking at a seaman-host's wine- 
 shop (where the boatswain, in spite of superstition, tells a lie 
 about his having been wrecked by a mermaid's song), they pass 
 an altar to Pluto. One of them asks the others to make an 
 offering here ; but, led by the boatswain, they mock at the idea of 
 worshipping a god with no power at sea. Pluto passes at the 
 moment, invisible in his magic helmet. He follows them to 
 their galley ; so does a boy, who steals aboard unnoticed. In 
 getting the galley away, the man, who would have offered a 
 sacrifice, is drowned. Pluto appears as a seaman, and is shipped 
 in the dead man's place ; he does this in the hope of getting 
 revenge on the pirates, because out of Hades he has no power as 
 a god. When the galley gets an offing, he summons Hermes 
 and sends him to Poseidon with a request for help. The result 
 is that some sirens try to sing the craft to ruin; but the seamen 
 are too drunk to hear them. Pluto then asks Poseidon for a 
 gale, to rouse the men from their drunken stupor. This is also 
 granted, the nereids singing all the time. Now, however, the 
 men are too hard at work in the gale for the songs to take effect 
 on them ; but when the wind lulls, and they are dozing about in 
 utter weariness, a mermaid sings them into glamorous stupor, 
 while Pluto steers their galley to the rocks.
 
 Daughters of Nereus 
 
 PART I 
 
 Late come ashore, with load of blood-got bales 
 
 Of Tyrian glories marked for foreign sales, 
 
 A pirate crew salt-crusted, brown, unkempt, 
 
 Of duty, country, friends and kin exempt 
 
 In breezy boldness, got of oceans, sought 
 
 The altar of their trident god, enwrought 
 
 In part and decked with pillaged splendours. There 
 
 It stood, but half-a-galley's length from where 
 
 The white surf briefly put a fair bride's lace 
 
 Upon the golden sand ; the sweeping grace 
 
 Of citron, lime and sycamore to right, 
 
 To left, and inland far. 'Twas piled of bright, 
 
 Green, mottled searock, shells, and diverse things 
 
 From craft which then lay' neath the murmurings 
 
 Of ocean's tides and streams ; 'twas high festooned 
 
 With garlands from the deep, that softly crooned 
 
 A hymn of service from the blue abyss, 
 
 And on the altar steps would lave its kiss. 
 
 There they, in sinewy tones made keen and strong 
 
 By shouting 'gainst wild gales, hove out this song : 
 
 15
 
 Corsairs 
 
 God of yonder rolling seas, 
 
 (Swing the offering altar-high !) 
 
 God of calm and full-sail breeze, 
 Hear thy seamen cry 
 
 Unto thee their worshipping 
 
 (Boatswain, heave the precious spoil !) 
 As to thee their best they bring, 
 
 Got of seaward moil. 
 
 Great Poseidon, give us ear, 
 
 (Many spoils our fathers knew !) 
 
 Bless us, even as we fear 
 Seas that leap and hew. 
 
 We are not of this dull strand ; 
 
 (Give us of the trader's store !) 
 Foot-to-foot and hand-to-hand 
 
 We fight from shore to shore. 
 
 Mighty god of oceans vast, 
 
 (How those dark Phoenicians fought !) 
 Send us galleys, homing fast, 
 
 All with treasures fraught. 
 16
 
 Landsmen are such timid souls, 
 
 (Master, pour the luscious wine !) 
 Fearful of their gods and doles, 
 
 Less bent to fight than pine. 
 
 But thy sailors come to thee, 
 
 (There the offering lies !) 
 With the freedom of the sea, 
 
 Marked of great emprise. 
 
 This done, they careless sought the harbour streets, 
 Where flamed the swift abandonment of eye ; 
 The languorous yet impassioned heave of breast; 
 The lips that moved instinctively to kiss ; 
 The mien whose palsied, silent burthen was 
 "O strangers of the waters deep and dread, 
 What terrors have ye done, or would do here?" 
 Where aged mothers, leaning weakly 'gainst 
 The frame-posts of their doors, slow-eyed those men 
 Of sun and sea-swarthed hue and lusty gait, 
 In lip-pursed silence still remembering 
 With time-dulled tuggings at their hearts young 
 
 sons 
 
 Who drew away to sea, forgetting all 
 Save that inherent something which compelled, 
 And never more were heard of native ears. 
 17 And
 
 And 'mongst the watchers there were some whose 
 
 eyes 
 Looked honest scorn men older than the corsair 
 
 crew, 
 
 Of deep-sea nets, hard toil and humble thought, 
 Whose craft were ever mothered by the coast; 
 Yet no less daring they, except in wrong. 
 Again, some others, honest but in place 
 And circumstance, threw looks of asking for 
 A vacant berth aboard the buccaneer ; 
 And here and there a youth, whose roving bent 
 Had quickened in the dullness of the shore, 
 Was seen to linger in the corsairs' steps, 
 Enwrapt of imaged ventures on the deep. 
 
 Anon the pirates sought their galley once 
 Again, and brought ashore some trinkets, silk, 
 And cloth the poorest of their plunderings ; 
 Yet common things of high estate and name, 
 Are splendours unto minds of homely toil. 
 To sale haphazard on the beach they put 
 This gear of foreign make and colours rare, 
 In all its added charm of sunlit sheen 
 And grace of newness, thrust the more to view 
 By simpleness of scene. The boatswain, man 
 Of ready mirth and inborn wit, full quick to seize 
 18
 
 Upon each favouring chance, the salesman was ; 
 And many an envious look, a few of keen 
 Delight, ensued. 
 
 Thus primed with native coin, 
 They straightway went to quench their lively thirst 
 In an adjacent wine-shop, where the host 
 A man of lumbering middle, big of voice 
 And oath, his face a dipping sun, and limbs 
 Like toughened spars had spent the most of life 
 'Twixt heaven and changing seas ; whereof he told, 
 At times, such tales as few believed. A boon 
 Companion he to his own sort ; one who 
 Had caught the knack of rhyming in his youth, 
 And now trolled out his ballads of old things 
 To many airs well-known in ports songs full 
 Of salty winds and sprays, and actions which 
 Were never meant for young or gentle ears. 
 And what a scene of riot-talk was that, 
 Meanwhile the host went gaily to and fro, 
 The game for custom playing well ; of boasts, 
 And doings such as ne'er had been ; of wrecks 
 On wondrous far-off coasts, great hero-deeds ; 
 Of ladies fair, young, rich, who came to woo 
 These gentle villains of the ruffian seas, 
 And that because some fancied handsomeness, 
 19 [Or
 
 Or fondly-thought romance, hung round and clothed 
 
 The subjects of their loves ; and other tales 
 
 Of other acts and scenes of roving life : 
 
 Each daring liar venturing a run 
 
 Beyond the one who lied but just before, 
 
 And everyone believing in his heart 
 
 That all the others lied much worse than he. 
 
 At length the boatswain, over-primed with wine, 
 
 And envious of the host's more vivid tales, 
 
 In vinous courage asked if any yet 
 
 Had heard a siren's fatal song. At this 
 
 A silence fell upon them all ; for those 
 
 To whom such dreaded notes were haply still 
 
 Unknown remembered how 'twas said at large, 
 
 That he who falsely boasted having heard 
 
 A nereid sing, when next he went to sea 
 
 Would hear one and would die. And those 
 
 Who stood about, at lattices and doors, 
 
 The wondering stay-at-homes who had so gaped 
 
 Each story in, now held their breath, 
 
 Agog, with heads out-stretched, eyes oped at full, 
 
 To hear what marvels more this spacious -'man 
 
 Of cheery quips and wildering seas had yet 
 
 To tell. Then, when his shipmates all had said 
 
 Their nays, that singing son of Bacchus and 
 
 20
 
 The sea had joined them, too, the boatswain up 
 And swtfng athwart their ears this tale of how 
 He heard a siren sing his ship to wreck. 
 
 Boatswain 
 
 We loaded up with Grecian cloths that shouted 
 Tyrian hues, 
 
 To trade them in Britannia for tins and fishy glues ; 
 
 From Salamis we started, when the sun was one- 
 hand high, 
 
 And headed into Myrtoum Sea, our galley deep but 
 dry. 
 
 Our master was Leucadian, and wondrous seamen 
 
 they; 
 But most of us were Thracians I came from Scyros 
 
 bay. 
 That eve we turned Cythera point, the open sea 
 
 ahead ; 
 And every man was merry, for the dipping sun was 
 
 red. 
 21 [Thus
 
 Thus seven days and seven nights we went into the 
 
 west, 
 T'wards where the great dark ocean lies whose 
 
 waters never rest ; 
 That night, the eighth, O strange, strange night ! as 
 
 true as ships do float, 
 We saw the staggering things of time move round 
 
 our fatal boat. 
 
 Weird fishes came and nosed us, as if to smell our 
 
 bent; 
 No breath across the ocean blew, and yet our sail 
 
 was rent ; 
 The waters spouted fire and ran, and leapt towards 
 
 the skies ! 
 Till every man in horror went, and blinded were his 
 
 eyes. 
 
 Then, when the middle watch was on, all things 
 
 grew black and fell 
 
 You could have sheered the darkness then and got 
 
 enough for hell. 
 But, what was worse than all things else, the air was 
 
 full of life, 
 Where all foul things in Nature seemed to be at 
 
 fearful strife. 
 
 22
 
 And, when the watch was almost spent, a light 
 
 mysterious came, 
 That lit all things from sky to sea in one great 
 
 purple flame. 
 That watch we saw the blood-red moon go down in 
 
 a blood-red sea, 
 And, of all the sights a sailor sees, that was enough 
 
 for me. 
 
 The day that followed was no day a sort of twilight 
 
 reigned ; 
 And still as death all things had grown, yet all things 
 
 were most strained ; 
 And when the night came on again 'twas filled with 
 
 sounds so sweet 
 That moons of melody were held in every moment 
 
 fleet. 
 
 Sometimes it seemed as if the sea was full of sirens' 
 songs, 
 
 Which swelled up to the heavens high, and bound 
 us as with thongs ; 
 
 And when they softly died away, one singing 
 seamaid thrilled 
 
 Our hearts and bodies with a song that all remem- 
 brance killed. 
 
 23 [Odysseus
 
 Odysseus never heard such songs, nor such Calypsos 
 
 knew, 
 For these were Oceanides that out of gale-foam 
 
 grew; 
 They could have sung young Jason from a hundred 
 
 fleece of gold, 
 Or charmed the stone of Sisyphus to leave its Hadean 
 
 hold. 
 
 At least the chief among them might, for none could 
 
 equal her; 
 And when her song was at its best, we glamoured 
 
 past all stir, 
 'Twas then our galley dashed aground, and woke us 
 
 with the shock, 
 And over sheer to larboard went upon a fearsome 
 
 rock ! 
 
 And not a man of all our crew 'cept mine own self 
 
 was saved ; 
 Our galley, too, and everything the hungry sea 
 
 in-graved. 
 All night and half next day I swam, of this the gods 
 
 are 'ware ; 
 Then landed on a hostile coast, to learn a slave's 
 
 hard care. 
 24
 
 The boatswain paused not that his improvised 
 Adventures were run short, or his unchecked 
 Imagination flagged as yet ; nor that 
 The pilot of the mind, Discretion, said 
 " Now shorten sail, a fogged coast lies a-lee." 
 'Twas that the silence marking all else there 
 Had grown so deep, that in its depth there was 
 A sense of stillness so profound, so full 
 Of pent oppression, wonder, as to put 
 This corsair's helm abruptly hard-a-lee ; 
 Almost ere he was 'ware, his bellying sails 
 Of speech were all aback. 
 
 A little while 
 
 This heavy feeling held. Meantime aloof, 
 In cogitations deep, the master sat, 
 His mood suspicious of hard thoughts now scarce 
 Restrained. The boatswain then, his tact once more 
 Alert, upturned his tankard, spilt its dregs 
 Upon the floor, and gaily called the host 
 To fill all up at his expense. Not his 
 Had been the only turn to hear and 'scape, 
 As old Odysseus did, a mermaid's song 
 Of death, he said: Full many a seaman else 
 Than he had done the same: What, then, was there 
 25 [To
 
 To marvel at in his small, simple tale ? 
 
 Whereon the host, with dubious winks aside 
 
 To some who winked return, again went in 
 
 And out for bursting flagons of his best ; 
 
 And all once more were merry as a crew 
 
 On homeward run before a stiffish breeze, 
 
 When drear and stale the long round-voyage has been. 
 
 With him, the host, these pirates sang and drank 
 
 Their fill ; then swung themselves abroad again, 
 
 To join their galley and at once to sea. 
 
 But ere they reached the quiet harbour-side, 
 
 A temple of the nether god was passed ; 
 
 And one who held that every god should have 
 
 Appeasement made by such as they, who paid 
 
 Respect to no man's law, suggested they 
 
 Should enter straight and make unto the god 
 
 An offering. But this the boatswain scorned ; 
 
 And others, keen to play quick courtiers 
 
 To one who had such power in work and peace 
 
 Aboard, with him in careless laughter scoffed, 
 
 That they should pay such grace and store of heed 
 
 To gods whose sole dominions were on land. 
 
 The master, mindful of his boatswain's love 
 
 To rule the crowd at will, put in a word 
 
 26
 
 To check his vaulting aims. But loud they swore, 
 Undisciplined and vile, that being now off-board 
 They were the masters of themselves, of what 
 They did ; and unto Pluto they would make 
 No sacrifice. 
 
 The god, then passing by, 
 
 Unseen, heard what was said and with them went 
 Towards their craft. And one there was who trod 
 Beside him, seen yet all unnoted by 
 The buccaneers a lad, he was, so fair 
 Of face and mien, so bright of eye, he might 
 Have been Apollo's son, and heir to all 
 His beauty and his grace. And when they came 
 To where the galley lay, he stole aboard 
 In privacy, a mingled joy and fear 
 Within his heart. 
 
 Meanwhile the men, 
 Hard put to get their robber-craft away, 
 Now blundered at the work, and hove, and cursed 
 Each one the other as a fool unfit 
 To go to sea. Till one at length, he who 
 Had fitly sought to pay the nether god 
 A corsair's dues, slipped mumbling in and clove 
 The harbour for a space ; then, spluttering, sank. 
 27 [His
 
 His fellows, half in wonder, half 
 
 In angry doubt that he had gone as some 
 
 Shore-lout would go, gazed helpless at the spot 
 
 'Neath where he lay, no more a pirate-hand. 
 
 But death stood small where oft his face was seen ; 
 
 And those hard sons of plunder and the seas 
 
 Paid little heed to lose a man at such 
 
 An hour. And Pluto, seeing this, at once 
 
 Appeared to view, in sailor-garb, bronzed like 
 
 To some old salt, and bearded full and black. 
 
 For service in the dead man's place he spoke 
 
 Straightway. Whereat the boatswain, quick to see 
 
 Upon his face a something strangely more 
 
 Than he could fathom, raised an oath and bade 
 
 The stranger seek elsewhere to ship. They had 
 
 No room for mystics in a fighting crew, 
 
 He growled in scorn, and turned again to work. 
 
 But here the master up and stood as such 
 
 A casual glance he threw athwart the god's 
 
 Dark eyes, his seaward presence, bearing, strength, 
 
 And said " I like thy looks ; join in and heave, 
 
 I'll test thee more at sea." 
 
 28
 
 PART II 
 
 Here all becalmed the pirate galley lies, 
 O'er-cupped by beauteous night. Her flapping sails 
 And creaking yards the heavens upbraid for wind, 
 If but enough to rouse her crew to work. 
 Meanwhile from near a neighbouring island comes 
 A murmuring sound of sweetness, touching here 
 And there the waters' face, and seeming then 
 To rise and float above, uncertain, faint 
 A mingled, broken, buoyancy of song, 
 In words unsure, although to ears attuned 
 Aright it subtly says, in prelude-wise 
 
 Seamaidens' Chant 
 
 Now skies are wondrous fair ; 
 
 And Night's small sentinels in shyness peep 
 
 Through foam-like clouds that lazy creep 
 
 As thin as wanton air ; 
 
 And cooing cats'-paws murmur low 
 
 Along the rippled bosom of the heaving deep, 
 
 And weary eyes are peacefully asleep : 
 
 29 [Now
 
 Now phosphorescent glow 
 
 Of waters, as they swish 
 
 The idle vessel's side, 
 
 Lone seamen tell of depths where eyeless fish 
 
 Can feel nor wind nor tide. 
 
 Now horned is the moon, 
 
 And smooth the ebbless sea, 
 
 Enwrapt amid the glamouring mystery 
 
 Of witching night. 
 
 Ah, now's the noon, 
 
 The full, ripe summer-time, 
 
 The flood-tide point, the prime 
 
 Of her delight 
 
 Of her delight, who yonder swims 
 
 In beauty, radiant more 
 
 Then is the flush that limns 
 
 Day's eastward door ; 
 
 Who swims in beauty, and can float in song 
 
 Such as did draw Odysseus' ship along 
 
 To Ogygia's isle ; 
 
 Who has her smile 
 
 From Aphrodite caught, 
 
 30
 
 What time the Queen of Love her wayward lover 
 sought. 
 
 Now rides the soft Grey King,* 
 
 On damp and silent wing, 
 
 Above the ever restless wave 
 
 That slowly moves along the mighty unstoned grave, 
 
 Wherein are merged some millions of men 
 
 Or slain or drowned ; 
 
 So does she then 
 
 Full gaily float around, 
 
 Where hidden rocks 
 
 An unknown current seeks 
 
 Give fearsome shocks, 
 
 Begetting irremediable leaks ; 
 
 And while with pearly scallopped shell 
 
 Found in an iridescent grot, 
 
 Where Nereids dwell, 
 
 By Care and Pain forgot 
 
 Her amber hair, of finest scented weed, 
 
 She combs ; and there her song she sings, to lead 
 
 The drifting vessel where 
 
 Her sisters' caverned homes in secret lie, 
 
 Rock-hidden from the human eye. 
 
 *Fog. 
 3i [Soft
 
 Soft, soft as the sigh of the surging sea 
 
 On a silvery strand, when sleepily 
 
 Long, slow waves shoreward roam ; 
 
 Low, low, low as the coo of the amorous gull, 
 
 When he struts on a rock at his season's full 
 
 To make himself a home ; 
 
 Sweet, sweet as the flesh of that pinky shell, 
 
 Which fishermen term the queenly belle 
 
 Of all this realm of foam, 
 
 Is the song that leaves her sea-loved lip 
 
 Deathward to lure the wayless ship. 
 
 Siren 
 
 I am a wild seamaiden, 
 
 Who sport with the waves at will, 
 And look for the ship deep-laden, 
 When winds do the waters thrill, 
 And the Furies have their fill 
 Their fill, their fill, 
 And the Furies have their fill. 
 
 1 care not for your landsmen 
 Who fear to come to sea ; 
 But the sailor bold, 
 
 32
 
 Be he young or old, 
 
 Is the full of my ecstacy, 
 
 When he drives on the rocks alee alee, 
 
 When he drives on the rocks alee. 
 
 And so for the seamen weary 
 
 My witching notes I wake, 
 
 As over the sea's breast dreary 
 
 Towards my cave they make, 
 
 Where soon their ship shall break 
 
 Shall break, shall break, 
 
 Where soon their ship shall break. 
 
 Pluto 
 
 Ay, sing, thou handmaid by Calypso and 
 
 My brother lent* to do me service here ; 
 
 Sing on, sing on so shall be lured to death 
 
 These wretches who would no libations pour 
 
 To me ; who drained their wine-bowls, laughing, 
 
 full 
 
 Of scoffs that they, who part amphibious are 
 And smack of salt, should make an offering 
 
 * Pluto had no power as a god when outside of Hades. In 
 personality he was much more human than the Hebrew devil. 
 
 33 [Unto
 
 Unto a god whose kingdom's not as this 
 
 Strange heaving waste, whose mystery none can 
 
 sound. 
 
 Yet they shall see, shall see these jesters vain 
 And ribald. But the boy, the boy ! Ah, no ; 
 It suits me not to hurry him to death 
 So frank of eye, with Aphrodite's stamp 
 Upon his face, some mother's treasure slipt 
 The leash of home for venture's sake. He may 
 Escape to tell strange tales of wondrous scenes, 
 Which were not wondrous if they were not new, 
 And set his fellows hungering for the like. . . . 
 Alas, the sea grows clear again ! And thou, 
 Poseidon, where's thy help in this revenge ? 
 
 Seamaidens' Chant 
 
 When Zephyrs play, or Eurus gently sweeps 
 The star-lit surface of these fathomed deeps ; 
 Or whispering comes the soft Etesian wind ; 
 Or dry Solano, leaving woe behind, 
 We mingle with their sound 
 The music of our song, 
 
 34
 
 And woo the ship aground, 
 
 Where undiscovered streams fast throng 
 
 To rock or shoal or bank, 
 
 And many a fair craft struck a plank 
 
 Then dropt to fishy depths beneath ; 
 
 Where whited bones are hidden, 
 
 Where faults are never chidden, 
 
 Where all our loves are bidden 
 
 To a green and golden heath. 
 
 Over the waters, with the soft coo-coo, 
 
 Our voices go stealing away ; 
 
 Lulling the senses as fond lovers do, 
 
 Winning our loves with our lay ; 
 
 Rising and falling, and rising again ; 
 
 Casting a spell o'er the hearts of men, 
 
 Finding and winding about their ears, 
 
 Circe-like soothing their human fe-ars ; 
 
 Winding and binding them all to our hearts, 
 
 Leading them down where a tear never starts, 
 
 To our white, golden-green and soft violet-hued 
 
 Deep grots in the 'gulfing sea 
 
 Pluto 
 
 Nay, nay, chant less, seamaids ; but sing ye more. 
 
 Your chants are vain ; your songs have potent force. 
 
 35 [So
 
 So sing your witching strains ay, sing ye on, 
 Till every seaman here cracks heart and nerve 
 To follow you, entranced in song to death. 
 
 Siren 
 
 Sweetly o'er the shimmering blue, 
 Diamond-flecked by mirrored stars, 
 Rovers, brave, I sing to you 
 Songs of joyous harbour-bars : 
 
 Songs of havens past compare, 
 Havens rich in fruits and wine ; 
 Where bacchantes are so fair 
 Hera lacks their charms divine. 
 
 Come, come why toil so hard ? 
 Toil is but for plodding minds ; 
 Yield to me your ship I guard 
 Safe from cross-course wrecking winds. 
 
 Follow, follow where I sing ; 
 
 Leave the helm your ship comes straight ; 
 
 Round your hearts my spell I fling ; 
 
 Mark the joys that on you wait, 
 
 36
 
 Boatswain (dreaming) 
 
 I tell thee, Phceb', true as thine eyes are bright, 
 
 I made no love to that Egyptian fair. . . . 
 
 No, no. . . . This is not kind of thee, sweet 
 
 Phoeb'. . . . 
 
 'Twas she to me that all the loving made ; 
 And e'en at that I said her nay, 'tis true, 
 'Tis true, I swear it is ; ay, by the fork 
 Of him who rules us, I do swear it ! ... Nay, nay 
 Mar not thy beauty with so foul a frown ; 
 It gains no end 'cept that it makes me tell 
 Thee once again (more wine I thirst) that I 
 Do count thy ruddy cheeks and Grecian charms, 
 Thy pinky bust and fuller shape and ways 
 A whole sea's breadth before her hue of Nile, 
 Her slender limbs, her langourous eyes and looks, 
 That snaky fashion in her movements (awakes in 
 
 -part) damn 
 
 All these crazed dreams of women here at sea ! 
 They mean some mischief gale, or wreck, or worse. 
 
 (Sleeps again). 
 
 Boy 
 
 I wish that I could sleep, or find some food ; 
 
 For here I hunger so that slumber seems 
 
 37 [E'en
 
 E'en further off than home. . . . Poor mother mine, 
 
 How she will miss her elder son to-night ! 
 
 Yet 'twas to be I could not stay on that 
 
 Dull shore, when once my lungs had drank their fill 
 
 Of this ; though now I do begin to doubt 
 
 If that this ship is all I wish she were. , . . 
 
 O come, sweet breeze, and stir these seamen from 
 
 Their sleep, that I may join their work and get 
 
 Some food I fear to move until I am 
 
 Of use to them, lest they should straight resent 
 
 My stolen presence here, 
 
 Pluto 
 
 How like to dogs they lie, all drunk in sleep 
 All dead to pleasure, and to danger lost ; 
 Not e'en her song has power to stir them from 
 This bacchic sleep. . . . Poseidon, thou must lend 
 Me other aid some stronger force ; or I 
 Must find me means anew whereby to pay 
 These god-revilers for their crime. Stay yet 
 A while, I hear her voice again ; mayhap 
 'Twill stir them now. 
 
 38
 
 Siren 
 
 1 sing o'er the waves when they wander low, 
 
 And the winds have ceased to fret and blow 
 
 Fair as the skies on a sunny morn, 
 
 Sweet as the notes of an Orpheus' horn, 
 
 Is the song that I sing to you, rovers bold, 
 
 Of fair treasures more rare than are gems andjjgold. 
 
 I sing of realms where dreams come true, 
 And Sorrow hides her head in shame ; 
 Where Pleasure never bids adieu, 
 And glory marks the poorest name. 
 
 I lead the way to bosoms warm, 
 White walls of rose-hued shrines of love, 
 Ensnaring with their wondrous form 
 E'en gods from goddesses above. 
 
 Then wake, O seamen, wake, 
 
 And follow where I lead ; 
 
 Your winy slumber break 
 
 Give heed, give heed ; 
 
 Or long, long may you live to sigh 
 
 You took not treasures held so nigh. 
 
 39
 
 Boy 
 
 What wondrous song is this I hear at times ? 
 
 So sweet it is that I do now forget 
 
 My hunger, home and sleep. And yet, so rich 
 
 It is, it takes me back to Sinon with 
 
 His pipes and sheep, which he so charmed upon 
 
 The mountain slopes, that they would dance and 
 
 skip 
 
 On hinder legs, and play strange pranks in walks 
 And runs upright, the while he piped his rare, 
 Wild, magic melody. 
 
 Pluto 
 
 In vain ! These sea-hogs are too drunk too drunk 
 
 To move at aught, unless it be fierce pain, 
 
 Or potent touch of that which made them thus ! 
 
 Now, brother, come a shrieking gale must stir 
 
 Them out of this ; so let thy furies loose, 
 
 Till Hades gapes to mouth these mockers all. 
 
 And thou, great Zeus, give help ; unchain thy host 
 
 Let lightnings flash and thunders roar across 
 
 This shimmering waste. Diana hide thy light, 
 
 So that in darkness thick as their own pitch 
 
 40
 
 These men shall toil ; while winds, this way and 
 
 that, 
 
 Here howl and rage in chaos driven mad ; 
 And mighty seas go leaping through the gloom, 
 In savage glee to crush all things afloat.
 
 PART III 
 
 Pluto 
 
 Now Naiads sleep, and black the skies appear ; 
 
 While sullen waves their crestless heads uprear 
 
 As though the Cyclops play in sport below 
 
 Then backward fall for want of Mistral's blow : 
 
 It is the vast sea labouring beneath, 
 
 Ere yet its forces rise a deadly wreath 
 
 Of whipping winds and lashing waves of hate, 
 
 In ominous silence moving t' wards the gate 
 
 That yet doth hold their mighty powers in ; 
 
 And e'en the air is murmuring that din 
 
 Which nothing makes but those Erinyes 
 
 In Tartarus deep, to whom these men of seas 
 
 And oaths forgot to sacrifice a sheep 
 
 Of night, before they put their sense to sleep 
 
 In bacchic worship. 
 
 Now on yonder beach 
 The agitated waters fall, and teach 
 By sobs, strange sighs and moans the weather- 
 wise 
 
 The Spirit of the Storm no longer lies 
 In idle, lethean sleep. . . . 
 42
 
 A gust of wind ! 
 
 The gale's forefront, in eager haste to blind 
 With hissing spray ; a heave to lee, and straight 
 The seaman's instinct leaps to active state, 
 Wine's shackles bursting at a single heave ; 
 And every man in wonder might believe 
 Himself transported to some clime unknown, 
 So great's his stupor and his purpose blown. 
 Loud shouts and hurrying feet speed fore and aft, 
 Till not a hand is idle in the craft. 
 And here the boy, in night and haste unguessed, 
 A stranger still, allows himself no rest ; 
 But lugs for life at tautening ropes and sails, 
 As if his years had known as many gales ; 
 Hopeful of food, a- wish for hard-earned sleep, 
 He even seeks to swing a lengthy sweep. 
 It is the first wild hurly-burly of 
 Half-wakened men, who know that round, above, 
 Below them seethe a thousand instant deaths, 
 Agog to end their gasping, puny breaths, 
 As snaps a strained thread. Ah, now I hear, 
 T'wards yonder small, dim isle, whereto we steer 
 Unknown to all, a melody that steals 
 Across the waves and e'en my memory seals 
 To many long-dead harmonies divine ; 
 Such wondrous sweets of hearing as to twine 
 
 43 [About
 
 About the heart like growing, tightening veins 
 Of running feeling full of pleasure-pains, 
 Too keen for joyance, over-heated, tense. 
 And yet in this wild chant there is a sense 
 Of underlying hate, too subtle far 
 To touch such crudeness as these pirates are. 
 So sing ye on, with all the rich delight 
 That ever left your wrecking lips at night. 
 
 Seamaidens' Chant 
 
 We gleefully now prepare 
 
 These battling men to snare 
 
 With songs that far shall ring, 
 
 As though the wild notes spring 
 
 From seraphim in air. 
 
 Now Boreas bursts from icy north 
 
 And whips our world to wrath ; 
 
 There blasting Syrian hurries forth 
 
 To line the coast with froth ! 
 
 Here Africus, or Caecias, or biting Argestes 
 
 Howls at crooked Cynthia, and drives the savage 
 
 seas 
 
 Whose crested heads and curling tops 
 Naught else but adamantine rock ere stops, 
 Or undiminishable space 
 44
 
 Returns to their appointed place 
 
 To foam and hiss, and leap on high 
 
 As if to 'front the very sky 
 
 And e'en Olympia invade ! 
 
 While round the rocks in wild disorder made 
 
 To crash and roar, recede, return, 
 
 To surge and seethe and spit, and spurn 
 
 Their very selves in impotence more fierce than 
 
 hate 
 
 These waters sink, then rise to sate 
 Their greed with worlds of struggling men ! 
 
 Now rayless darkness reigns ; 
 
 And snap Erinyes their hadean chains, 
 
 And, winging o'er the seven-circling stream, 
 
 Return to Night their breeding, black-browed, 
 
 dream 
 
 And crime-begetting dam their horrid heads aglow 
 With writhing snakes, while drops of blood out-flow 
 Their damned and fearsome eyes : 
 
 Now driving cloud and hurrying scud 
 
 Shut out the light of moon and star, that would 
 
 Assistance give these corsairs in their plight ; 
 
 And Death stalks large in sheer despite 
 
 45 [Of
 
 Of Mercy's pleading cry 
 
 To spare the unprepared-to-die, 
 
 Who go with oath still half-inside their lips 
 
 And finish it in hell and wholesale slips 
 
 The tethered souls of men, 
 
 As man would free from pound or pen 
 
 A flock of frightened sheep ! 
 
 Now ships spars gone, full oft a tattered sail ; 
 And men, who craved a capful, fight the gale 
 They did not ask drive helpless on a blind 
 Lee-shore; while seamen, numbed by cold, hard 
 
 bind 
 
 Themselves, with grating teeth and flashing eyes, 
 To try a hand-to-hand, and life the prize, 
 With fierce, home-gathering Death. 
 
 Siren 
 
 Wild and weird o'er the gale-lashed sea, 
 
 Twisted and twirled by the shrieking wind ; 
 
 Seeming a part of its maddened glee ! 
 
 Now here, now there, ahead, behind ; 
 
 I send my song through the blinding spray, 
 
 To lead you, mariners, hither astray. 
 
 46
 
 Across the waters and over the deck, 
 About the sails and among the shrouds ; 
 Seeking the labouring ship to wreck, 
 Now lost in the sea, then up in the clouds ; 
 Hurrying, dallying, never at rest, 
 Ever bent on a ghoulish quest. 
 
 Now high ! then low ; next piercing sweet ; 
 
 Then as the sigh of a soul in pain ; 
 
 Now seemingly the driving sleet, 
 
 And next the cry of the troubled main ! 
 
 Through hatches, in cabins now tenderly soft, 
 
 Windward and leeward, alow and aloft. 
 
 Now borne on the crest of a towering wave, 
 The tortured soul of the wild Siroc ! 
 Now moaning low in the blue-green grave, 
 Where the shifting sand, and the submerged rock, 
 And the coral-reef, and we Sirens lurk 
 To do Poseidon's special work. 
 
 Thrilling the soul, killing the sense, 
 
 Dwelling a pause ; . . . now swelling thence 
 
 In higher and wilder and sweeter notes, 
 
 47 [Which
 
 Which far overhead the mad wind floats ! 
 
 Appearing of heaven, yet springing from hell ; 
 
 Misleading the most when seeming to dwell 
 
 To the lee of the fated ship ! 
 
 Fainting away in the flying spray, 
 
 As the sobbing soul of a slaughtered Fay ; 
 
 Yearning and turning and burning, 
 
 Hiding, revealing, 
 
 Wheeling and wounding and healing ; 
 
 Playing tattoos on the heart, and eeling 
 
 The pulse of the listening soul 
 
 As rolling and tumbling nearer the goal, 
 
 Pitching and surging comes the ship 
 
 Is the song that I sing, 
 
 And the wild Storm-king 
 
 Bears far from mine unkissed lip ! ... 
 
 Pluto 
 
 How fast they run from task to task, all toil 
 And hate ! all eagerness, and shouts that drown 
 Her song. . . . Ah, now, scarce knowing 'tis her 
 
 song, 
 That seems to be the gale's weird chant of hate
 
 And death, they put the stern t' wards where she 
 
 floats 
 
 And sings with no more power o'er their hearts 
 Than when they all in vinous stupor slept. . . . 
 Down, down each rolling vale the galley speeds 
 A thing of life, well-nigh, hard-hunted by 
 These mighty ocean lurchers here, foam-lipped, 
 Green-hued and keen, that run beside her while 
 They seem to laugh and hiss " Run on, run on ; 
 When we are ready, you shall run no more." .... 
 But will the hounds run too long thus ? until 
 These god-revilers have out-reached her song 
 And all the dangers that surround the shore ? 
 It must not be ! Ye Furies turn this wind 
 And drive them back. Help, help a god ! 
 Who here scarce owns a god's high attribute. 
 
 Round veers the breeze, still fierce, and leeward 
 
 drifts 
 
 The straining craft ; as Night her mantle shifts 
 From east to west, until beneath its edge 
 These seamen peep for fairer weather's pledge. 
 But daylight breaks, dull, cold and grey, 
 Betraying all the elemental fray 
 Has brought about : sails torn to shreds, 
 And splintered spars that dangle o'er the heads 
 49 [Of
 
 Of water-dripping men, whose faces tell 
 
 Of toil in salty lines (where lurking dwell 
 
 Strong yarns of many storms) ; eyes bleared with 
 
 brine, 
 
 And matted hair wherein, like frost, low shine 
 Faint particles of salt ; hard fingers bent 
 And stiff with oft embracing ropes which lent 
 A succour from the waves ; decks white and bare, 
 Except the water swishing here and there ; 
 The spray-drenched cordage, hatches battened fast, 
 And broken halyards swaying 'bout the mast 
 All proofs of storm unspent. And he, the boy, 
 Now fed, but wanting sleep and home-wrought joy; 
 Adventure dulled to pained discomfort, brand 
 Of dangers great, where wits nor strength of hand 
 Are more than chance against the will of gods 
 Who frown, insatiate, and ply their rods 
 Of keen, inevitable punishment. 
 Slow comes the day, and still no sign of rest 
 In sky or wind that rears the sea's great breast 
 Into a myriad of nipples, fierce 
 And large and white, which hissing rush to pierce 
 The groaning ship, and yield not life but death. 
 Now sailors eye their mates ; then catch their breath 
 And talk, in fear, of hatches over-turned,
 
 Knives stuck in masts, and low blue lights that 
 
 burned 
 
 But yester-eve about the weather-vane ; 
 Of many foundered ships that tried in vain 
 To run a Friday's voyage ; of drowned cats, 
 And vessels out of which the auguring rats 
 Decamped when last in port ; of sneezes done 
 To left, and squealing pigs, and whistling on 
 The prow by thoughtless lads ; of horsey dreams, 
 And where the light of woman's eye out-gleams 
 The brilliance of gems ; and other things 
 Which fill the sailor's mind with murmurings 
 
 And speak to him of wrecks. . . . 
 
 / 
 
 Now lulls the gale ; 
 
 And shouting corsairs spread another sail 
 To check the roll, and forge their ship ahead, 
 Which now is drifting t'wards that thing they dread 
 As dolphins do the shark, a bristling reef 
 Of rocks but just awash a line of grief 
 More grim than Gorgon-Stethno's horrid face, 
 Out-lined with foamy effervescent lace 
 Instead of serpent-hair, a spot that oft, 
 Whilst guarding yonder golden beach, aloft 
 Has hurried hence, or down to Hades straight 
 Despatched, a dozen souls at once. 
 5i
 
 PART IV 
 
 Down drops the night, and all the wind has gone ; 
 
 Erinyes their share of work have done 
 
 And hied them back below. Now stars once more, 
 
 And pale young moon in cloudless sky, soft o'er 
 
 These waters cast their tender light ; and rolls 
 
 The craft from side to side, until she tolls 
 
 The bell herself, as if in play to call 
 
 The slumbering watch. Now monstrous seas dull 
 
 fall 
 
 (Like lazy giants wanting mental force 
 To give a purpose to their feeble course 
 Of life) against the galley's planks, and flaps 
 The sails about their masts in mimic claps 
 Of thunder ; while the worn-out watch on deck 
 No longer dreading death or wind or wreck 
 Doze here and there, forgetful of the fear 
 That lee-shore made them feel : not one to steer 
 The windless craft remains awake enough, 
 So long has been the struggle and so rough. 
 In Pluto's hands the yielding tiller lies, 
 And at his feet the boy with sleep-sealed eyes. 
 
 52
 
 Siren 
 
 Now, now's the hour ! 
 
 My voice I'll tune to fit the time, 
 
 And mould my song with soothing rhyme 
 
 And Nereid's power. 
 
 As soft as the down on Psyche's arm, 
 
 More gentle than youth when its love it seeks 
 
 Some shy young maid to tell ; 
 
 As potent as ^Esculapian balm, 
 
 And fair as the flush on a new bride's cheeks 
 
 Where chastened beauties dwell ; 
 
 More lulling than love when first it speaks 
 
 And casts o'er the heart its spell 
 
 Shall my song to the sailors be, now that they sleep 
 
 On this subtle old breast of the mystical deep. 
 
 Pluto 
 
 So let it be so make thy song this time, 
 
 That, while it lasts, no pirate here can say 
 
 His heart doth beat. Put forth thy powers all 
 
 And borrow, borrow from thy sisters of the deep, 
 
 Till every charm of slumber and delight 
 
 Are in thy 'thralling use, 
 
 53
 
 Siren : to the Night 
 
 O'er sapphire-depths I float and sing, 
 While thus you move on world-shot wing ; 
 And stars their borrowed lustre show, 
 Calm, faint, and fair with sacred glow. 
 
 O beauteous Stars ; ah, soothing Night ; 
 
 wondrous bars of quivering light 
 
 That tender roam o'er green-white foam 
 Chaste diamonds in an azure dome. 
 
 Smile on, O Night mysterious veil 
 While soft I tell my rhythmic tale 
 Of sweet enchanting grots below, 
 Where tides are not, nor breezes blow. 
 
 Give sleep, O Moon : stir not, O Wind, 
 
 1 crave the boon, this crew to bind 
 With spirit-thong, in bonds as strong 
 As was Calypso's magic song. 
 
 Pluto 
 
 Ah, now she draws them on ! Now they awake ! 
 See how their heavy heads are raised to catch 
 54
 
 Her melodies divine ! Now do they feel 
 The wondrous force that lies in lyric strains 
 By magic beauty marked. Sing on, thou maid 
 Of song and wrecks, of hidden ocean caves 
 Where many noble ventures lie, that put 
 To sea in prideful promise of renown ! 
 Sing on, sing on, thou hast them now ! And I 
 Will steer their craft where'er thy singing leads. 
 
 Siren : to the Sea 
 
 Swelling sea and rolling billow, 
 
 Ye, whereon my head I pillow 
 
 As I braid my yellow hair, 
 
 While the Night soft tears is weeping, 
 
 And these sailors 'tranced I'm keeping, 
 
 Come, assist me them to snare. 
 
 As ye wander rising, falling, 
 
 Feathery foam and green mounds calling 
 
 On the wind to hold ye up 
 
 Bear their floating home where singing 
 
 Here I lie, in hope of bringing 
 
 Them to-night with me to sup. 
 
 55 [Twist
 
 Twist a current, swiftly winding 
 Past the ship, and straightway finding 
 Where the rocks in hiding wait. 
 While I weave a charm about them, 
 Deeper than the grave without them, 
 Drift these pirates to their fate. 
 
 Pluto 
 
 Enmeshed, enchanted, all ensnared, see how 
 They creep to strain their briny heads across 
 The bulwarks' top and hear her subtleties 
 Of song ! Oblivious of aught else, their hearts, 
 Their stubborn senses, all their beings 'tranced ; 
 Out-wearied with their toil and passive now, 
 They feel no languish, know no pain 
 Except the pain of sound, which is so sweet 
 That in itself it wakes a sleeping pain, 
 Whereof a sadness dear still hides the most. 
 Their faces, erstwhile heavy with a want 
 Of thought, are now all eagerness and life 
 Sharp-pricked ; their ears, too small to hear enough, 
 Have borrowed further scope from eyes up-closed. 
 Sing on ! sing on, thou lure to death in song 
 That drowns all else in Lethe's darkened stream. 
 56
 
 I might have built a prison 'stead of this, 
 
 Or an asylum reared for men gone mad 
 
 Of wrong. But here's my world a while, this ship; 
 
 These scoffers stand for all humanity ; 
 
 And thou, sea-maid, my symbol art of crime ; 
 
 The subtle song its great seductiveness 
 
 To heads whose moral hearing is awry. 
 
 So sing thou on enraptured keep them all, 
 
 Till comes the crash ; e'en that adventurer young, 
 
 Who hangs enstilled and dumb on each new note, 
 
 Far more than do the elders at his sides 
 
 As ever does green youth with things beyond 
 
 Its grasp of mind ay, even he must go ; 
 
 The flower 'mongst the tares, as life must be. 
 
 And yet, and yet why must he die with them ? 
 
 That mother dear, who made his bed last night, 
 
 In hope that he would come ere all had supped 
 
 And left her to her vigil lone and sad, 
 
 Will make his bed again and yet again 
 
 Till he return, or many years be past. 
 
 And if he 'scape this venture of his youth, 
 
 Mayhap he will not further try the like. 
 
 So be it then when that the galley strikes, 
 
 With me the lad shall safely go to land, 
 
 And home be set once more if t'were alone 
 
 To keep that mother's heart still young. But them 
 
 57 [These
 
 These learned navigators of crime's sea, 
 To all its winds and waves a common mark, 
 Each one of them must go. Hence, nereid, sing, 
 Till cracks their strained hearing in the rush, 
 The heights and depths of thy strange melodies ; 
 Ay, keep them thus all 'glamoured with delight, 
 All 'passioned in thy luscious wealth of song ; 
 As silent, still, and raptured as yon' stars, 
 Till down they go, to find fresh stars in scenes 
 More new and even wonderful than this. 
 
 Siren : to the Corsairs 
 
 The moonbeams step from wave to wave, 
 
 And silver thus each crest ; 
 
 The gale is o'er, and idly moves 
 
 Old Ocean's loveless breast. 
 
 And over heaving foam-capped hills, 
 
 Down vales of shimmering green 
 
 Where fishes hold their emerald court, 
 
 And rules a Nereid-Queen 
 
 With swaying sails your rolling ship rides high, 
 
 T' wards joys so fair they never cause a sigh. 
 
 Come, follow on, while thus I sing, 
 
 And sweet weird music free ; 
 
 58
 
 My instrument's a crimson shell, 
 
 Which Orpheus gave to me ; 
 
 The strings are made of Echo's hair, 
 
 And finer ne'er have been ; 
 
 My bow was by Euterpe lent, 
 
 Of all the Nine the queen : 
 
 Erato's shade doth dwell within and sings, 
 
 And when I pray she breathes upon the strings. 
 
 Come to cerulean depths with me 
 
 Hie to our caverns below ; 
 
 Come where the mermaidens wanton free, 
 
 Down where no suns ever glow. 
 
 Crystalised jewels give all light there, 
 
 Beryl and sapphire, and all ; 
 
 Diamond and emerald and turquoise fair, 
 
 Set in a clear amber wall. 
 
 Mother-of-pearl is the only thing 
 
 Mermaids ever employ ; 
 
 All other things, to the songs we sing, 
 
 Leave we for you to enjoy. 
 
 Down in the mirroring depths beneath 
 
 59 [Purple,
 
 Purple, gold, crimson and white, 
 Violet and pink in a rainbow-wreath 
 Render a glorious light. 
 
 Gardens we make with bright-hued weeds, 
 
 Scented and sweet to the taste ; 
 
 Kisses we give till the pale lip bleeds 
 
 Come to our bosoms in haste. 
 
 There in our grottos, where dolphins die, 
 
 Giving the walls a new glow,* 
 
 Nereids shall tend you, with rolling eye 
 
 Never a pain shall you know. 
 
 Pluto 
 
 Now do they sleep in very ecstacy 
 
 Of sound do slumber in the joy of song, 
 
 That thrills them into listening helplessness, 
 
 And makes them babes, who yet are coarse, hard, bold 
 
 And lustful men. 
 
 Siren: to the Corsairs 
 
 Sleep, tired eyes, 
 
 A long, sweet calm I bring ; 
 
 Elysian prize 
 
 * The dying dolphin turns almost all kinds of pretty shade 
 and colours. 
 
 60
 
 For you is on the wing. 
 Rest, . . . rest, . . . rest ; 
 No more wild seas or gales 
 Shall stop your quest, 
 Or tear your speeding sails. 
 Sleep, . . . sleep, . . . sleep ; 
 The task is nearly done, 
 The last port almost won 
 Sleep, sleep, ye weary sailors, sleep. 
 While slumbers sweet 
 Enchain sour roving minds, 
 Your winding sheet 
 I spread where no one finds. 
 Dream, . . . dream, . . . dream, 
 And think yourselves at home, 
 Where bright eyes gleam 
 A welcome from the foam. 
 Peace, . . . peace, . . . peace ; 
 From pain and toil release. 
 Now comes your long repose 
 From all earth's transient woes ; 
 
 Your circumscribed lives shall cease 
 
 In, waters deep: 
 
 Sleep, . . . sleep, . . . sleep, 
 
 For ever . . . and for ever . . . shall ye sleep. 
 
 61 [Crash
 
 Crash ! on the rocks 'tis the craft aground ! 
 A moment thus, . . . and the waters bound 
 Into the hold, and she reels aside, 
 Then backward falls in the wolfish tide 1 
 Flung from its feet is the watch on deck ; 
 An instinct tells of approaching wreck: 
 Up from below the affrighted leap 1 
 Half-folded still in the arms of sleep. 
 
 Time grants no space to think of boats 
 
 Or planks, or anything that floats ! 
 
 Already rise the waters high ; 
 
 And circles round, with horrid cry , 
 
 The vulture of the seas ! There's not 
 
 Enough of time but for a jot 
 
 Of low and half-unconscious pray'r, 
 
 As eyes dilate and daftly stare 
 
 About. Ah, now a rush ! a leap ! 
 
 A roll ! . . . a gurgle: and the deep, 
 
 Hard rocks, gulls screaming and the foam, 
 
 Yon pallid moon and star-flecked dome, 
 
 Arrayed in mute sublimity, 
 
 Are all the human eye can see. 
 
 FINIS 
 
 62
 
 THE SHIP
 
 The Ship 
 
 (For Music) 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Chant the story, wing the glory 
 Of this argosy to be : 
 Bridge of ocean, what devotion 
 Men have shown for worth of thee 1 
 
 New-world finder, nations' binder, 
 Widener of the world of thought ; 
 Thing of beauty, blessing duty, 
 With what skill and patience wrought ! 
 
 Snow-winged bird of seas uncharted, 
 Scene of actions hero-hearted, 
 With glamour thou art fraught ! 
 With what glamour, with what glamour 
 With what glamour thou art fraught 
 
 64
 
 THE BUILDING 
 
 Lay it true and strong and straight, 
 
 Keel to plough the azure main ; 
 Ribs of steel to hold the freight 
 
 Round the world and back again. 
 Rivet, bolt and plate and beam, 
 
 Sternpost, stem and transom strong, 
 Deck and bulwarks, leakless seam, 
 
 Hammered by the sinewy throng. 
 
 Swing the sledges, swing them right, 
 Beat up every rivet tight ; 
 Clamp and ratchet, knee-piece, strip 
 Thus is built the noble ship ! 
 
 See ! she glides, as though with life, 
 
 Down the ways and floats in pride ! 
 Prey of seas where winds are rife, 
 
 Carrier swift where calms abide. 
 Now within her hidden ways 
 
 Throbs the power to drive her fast ; 
 Builder's splendid source of praise, 
 
 Glow and glamour round her cast ! 
 65 [Helm
 
 Helm and hull, spars, sails and ropes, 
 Centre of a thousand hopes ; 
 Pistons, shaft and cylinders 
 Mark what potency is hers ! 
 
 LOADING AND MANNING 
 
 With what shall we load her, this craft so fair? 
 And how shall we man her, when manned with care ? 
 Link 'twixt our islands and countries afar, 
 Industry's peacefully water-borne car. 
 Load her and man her for far eastern shores, 
 Where merchandise rich swells the dark traders' 
 stores. 
 
 With western goods we store the hold, 
 
 (O Chief Mate, see all stowed aright !) 
 From loom and foundry, wrought for gold, 
 
 The trophies of industrial might; 
 Dead-weights below, light cases last, 
 
 (O Boatswain, send more gear aloft !) ; 
 Shore up that boiler, shore it fast; 
 
 The 'tween-decks stow with cottons soft. 
 66
 
 On hatches now ; the hold is full ; 
 Here, bear a hand, a lusty pull, 
 And swing her from the quayside free, 
 Her head for yonder furthering sea 1 
 
 Now comes the crew of white men bold, 
 
 (O Captain, have you clearance there ?) 
 Lithe sailors whose tanned features hold 
 
 Salt yarns of things few landsmen dare. 
 Mark how they grip each dripping rope, 
 
 (O Boatswain, pipe that hawser out !) 
 A nation's pride, a Navy's hope ; 
 
 Now list, ye, to their hauling shout 
 
 Boatswain's Cry 
 
 Haul, boys, haul ! 
 
 For the girls on the quay 
 
 Are a-watchin' you and me ; 
 
 So it's haul, boys ; HAUL, boys, HAUL ! 
 
 IN THE OFFING 
 
 Farewell, dear land that gave us birth ; 
 
 Adieu, awhile to all we love ; 
 67 - [Farewell,
 
 Farewell, ye scenes of native mirth ; 
 
 Fair seas below, blue skies above ; 
 Westward we steer our charted course, 
 
 By wind and steam's united force. 
 
 Captain's Song 
 
 Now, swung from yonder quay's dull side, 
 
 The open sea lies fair ; 
 We'll out upon our ocean wide 
 
 The land is full of care. 
 For Neptune's brethren are we, 
 
 Let's up and home again to sea ! 
 
 The hold is full ; our sails are set ; 
 
 The wide world lies before ; 
 O wind astern, which brings no fret, 
 
 Blow us from this rank shore ! 
 
 The spume may be around our knees, 
 
 White horses running high ; 
 Yet, oh, we love the freshening breeze, 
 
 The stretch of God's clear sky ! 
 With tautened sheets and yards hauled square, 
 
 Oh, glorious is the seaman's fare ! 
 68
 
 For far ahead a port we seek, 
 
 An eastern port of ease ; 
 Where maidens lithe, of dusky cheek, 
 
 Glad hail us from the seas. 
 
 OUTWARD BOUND 
 
 The decks are cleared, the watch is set, 
 Stout hearts are touched with fond regret ; 
 The Captain walks his poop in pride, 
 And scans the endless heaving tide. 
 Kind Neptune, grant us fortune fair, 
 And then for gales we shall not care. 
 
 Chief Mates Song 
 
 I have watched the sun at midnight 
 
 In that far-off northern sea ; 
 I have seen old Nature's lyddite 
 
 Burst on our blackened lee, 
 When the squalls were round us shrieking, 
 
 'Mid Western Ocean foam, 
 And savage seas were seeking 
 
 To claim us for their own 
 69 [To
 
 To claim us for their own. 
 For I am a Nature's wanderer, 
 
 To every coast-line known ; 
 
 With every flag for my flag, till my flag waves me 
 home. 
 
 Through the tropics I have sweltered, 
 
 On a biscuit for each day ; 
 Round the Horn in gales I've weltered, 
 
 Felt typhoons off far Cathay ; 
 Heard the salt sea surges singing, 
 
 As up every shore they roam ; 
 And a hundred strange tongues ringing 
 
 In the hundred lands I've known 
 
 In the hundred lands I've known. 
 For I am Nature's wanderer, 
 
 O'er every ocean blown ; 
 
 With every land for my land, till my land calls me 
 home. 
 * * # # 
 
 Here on our native sea, 
 
 Eastward now we steer ; 
 Cupped by vast infinity 
 
 Heaven and death, how near ! 
 White the foam that flies asunder, 
 
 As her bows the waters cleave ; 
 70
 
 While with mimic claps of thunder, 
 
 All her sails to leeward heave. 
 Movement, freedom unrestricted, 
 Never yet in full depicted ; 
 Phase of beauty nigh supernal 
 Here is thine, O Sea eternal ! 
 Here is thine, here is thine, O Sea eternal ! 
 
 Chief Engineer s Song 
 
 How lightly the wavelets are touched by the wind, 
 As they ripple and shine in these tropical rays ; 
 
 How sprightly the graceful ship runs, like a hind 
 In the fulness of youth and the pride of her days! 
 
 With her pistons, her crankshaft, propeller and all, 
 
 How she races and laughs, to that windjammer's gall! 
 
 There's joyance more gracious in movement at sea, 
 Than the landsman can know in his curcumscribed 
 
 lot; 
 
 There's breadth to the soul, and a mind's liberty, 
 And there's peaceful content which no earth-cloud 
 
 can blot: 
 
 Ah, but where should we be without glorious steam? 
 Half dead in these doldrums, or dreaming some 
 
 dream. 
 71 [Then
 
 Then off with the gloom, the oppression and care, 
 That gnaw at our hearts in the ways of the shore; 
 
 Here's pleasure unbounded for all who will fare 
 To the furthest of harbours and back to the Nore. 
 
 But wherever you steer on this heaving wide world, 
 
 Let it be where a feather of steam is up-curled. 
 
 IN HARBOUR 
 
 Wanderers from those Isles of Fortune, 
 
 Set in northern seas afar, 
 Here we lie until we languish, 
 'Neath the sacred deodar. 
 
 There, upon the windless river, 
 
 Yards 'mong palms where monkeys run, 
 Lies our ship, that seems to sorrow 
 
 At this everlasting sun. 
 
 Maidens draped in shimmering gauzes, 
 Eyes where fires of night-time lie ; 
 
 But they are not Albion's daughters, 
 Thus we let them pass us by. 
 
 72
 
 Second Mate's Song 
 
 Keep ye your eastern beauties, with 
 
 Their dark and luminous eyes, 
 Where sparks of hazy passion lie, 
 
 Like stars in midnight skies ; 
 Keep ye their sensuous movements and 
 
 Their wealths of jetty hair, 
 Though rise they high, they come not nigh 
 
 Our British girls so rare. 
 
 I care not for their luscious lips, 
 
 Though none so richly red, 
 So tempting that e'en Cupid might, 
 
 To make them thus, have bled. 
 I hear their dreaming-bell-like tones, 
 
 And mark their languid air ; 
 Yet, kin nor kith, they cannot with 
 
 Our British girls compare. 
 
 Though saunter they 'mid orange groves, 
 
 Or bask in terraced shade ; 
 Or move at night through famous halls, 
 
 In sprightly masquerade ; 
 
 73 [Yet
 
 Yet not their witching lace-draped forms, 
 
 Their busts so full and bare, 
 Can equal you, sweet, gentle, true, 
 
 Our British girls so fair. 
 
 Then all your night-eyed beauties keep, 
 
 Their glamour flits me by ; 
 Their beauty, languor, warm romance 
 
 Beget in me no sigh ; 
 For, roaming by the babbling brook, 
 
 Or merged in household cares, 
 My every part, by Nature's art, 
 
 A British girl ensnares. 
 
 Boatswain's Chanty 
 
 Oh, it's fine to lie a-watching these gay fireflies at 
 night 
 
 Heave away the anchor ! 
 
 There's a glamour in the colour of these [eastern 
 maids' delight 
 
 Heave away the anchor ! 
 For we know a land where pleasure 
 Runs in fairer sunset measure, 
 When the work of life gives leisure 
 74
 
 Oh, and that's the land for us ! 
 Oh, and that's the land for us ! 
 Heave away the anchor, 
 Heave away the anchor ! 
 Far across that tumbling ocean 
 Lies the land of our devotion 
 And that's the land of England, merry though her 
 
 skies are grey ! 
 
 And that's the land of England, merry though her 
 skies are grey ! 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 How heavy hang these jury sails, 
 From yards that creek in idleness ; 
 
 While we do well-nigh ask for gales 
 To break these days monotonous. 
 
 Here broken down a long week lost ; 
 
 Where now's the steam they boasted loud ? 
 How better by some gale be tost, 
 
 Than thus be crushed and bowed ! 
 
 75 [Dull-eyed
 
 Dull-eyed we seamen hang about 
 
 In these long calms, where decks grow hot ; 
 At night almost afraid to shout, 
 
 By day all sullen with our lot. 
 
 In eager joy to feel at last, 
 As yonder comes across the waste 
 
 A breeze that cries to woe " Avast ! " 
 And home we speed in foaming haste. 
 
 Second Engineer's Song 
 
 We may steam the wide world over, 
 We may tread each foreign shore, 
 
 Ev'ry one at heart a rover, 
 Probing pleasure to the core ; 
 
 But in some country, near or far, 
 
 Each roamer owns a mistress-star. 
 
 So it's home, sweetheart, home ; 
 
 It's home across the sea ; 
 Our valves they are all tightened up, 
 
 And every crank runs free 
 76
 
 And every crank runs free, lass ; and every crank 
 
 runs free ; 
 And o'er the sea we're bowling now to home, dear 
 
 home, and thee. 
 
 They may call us light-o-hearts, 
 We lone wanderers of the deep ; 
 
 Say we play our fickle parts, 
 
 While the world around us weeps ; 
 
 But 'tis not they who learn to know 
 
 The hearts that roam yet homeward go. 
 
 For it's home, dearest, home ; 
 
 It's homeward now we come, 
 With every pound of steam she'll stand, 
 
 Each boiler like a drum. 
 Each boiler like a drum, lass ; all cranks so cool 
 
 and free ; 
 
 We're swinging o'er the smoking seas to harbour, 
 home and thee ! 
 
 77
 
 Third Mate's Song 
 
 We have threshed the world around, love, 
 
 With the foam along our lee ; 
 But now we're homeward-bound, love, 
 
 To England and to thee ! 
 So let the winds their chanties yell, 
 
 Like demons wild with glee ; 
 What should we care, who seek to swell 
 
 The knots we make to thee ? 
 
 Down the wind she wallows 
 
 Homeward-bound, homeward-bound ! 
 
 Rolling seas where are no shallows 
 Homeward-bound, homeward-bound ! 
 
 Sheets and tacks like harp-strings ; 
 
 Home, to where the lark sings ; 
 
 Down the wind our craft swings 
 Homeward-bound, homeward-bound ! 
 
 We have threshed the world about, love, 
 With death so much at hand 
 
 That oft we had to doubt, love, 
 If God could understand. 
 
 78
 
 But now those dangers lie astern- 
 We'll soon be safe on land ; 
 
 At home with thee to take a turn, 
 And pleasure's sails expand. 
 
 AT THE QUAYSIDE : 
 
 Ballad of the Brown Sailorman 
 
 ' O Sailorman, brown Sailorman, whence come you 
 
 with your load ? " 
 O'er heaving tracks of bluey green where no man 
 
 sees the road " 
 Your load that hints of far-off lands, gay colours 
 
 and romance, 
 
 Dark eyes, and twilight beauties such as love the 
 moonlit dance." 
 
 " O maiden, fresh and comely, with your cheeks of 
 
 ensign-hue " 
 " Nay, flatter not, brown Sailorman ; be simple and, 
 
 be true " 
 79 [" From
 
 " From East to West the world around we trimmed 
 
 our slatting sails, 
 Till scarce a yard of canvas stood to meet the 
 
 freshening gales." 
 
 "O Seaman, tell me truly now what maids you 
 
 sought to woo " 
 " We come from shores where ne'er are seen such 
 
 lovely maids as you " 
 " For it is said that sailormen have sweethearts by 
 
 the score, 
 A new one in each port they touch from China to 
 
 the Nore." 
 
 " We have scudded under poles as bare as is your 
 
 beauteous brow " 
 " I fear that Neptune's taught to you a courtier's fickle 
 
 vow " 
 " Becalmed we lay three tropic weeks, with only 
 
 thoughts of you, 
 And sweet remembrances of home, to help us bear 
 
 them through." 
 
 
 
 "Yes, Sailorman, brown Sailorman, we know the 
 
 tales you tell " 
 80
 
 " You cannot know that which you doubt, my saucy 
 
 English Nell" 
 "When home you come a-sailing, from the loves 
 
 you leave behind 
 In those far-off Eastern harbours, where an incense 
 
 fills each wind." 
 
 "You know we ride the great seas round for 
 
 England's daughters' sake" 
 "And yet how oft, by riding on, those daughters' 
 
 hearts you break " 
 " Nay, blame us not. Do we not know the glare of 
 
 desolate skies, 
 With naught but them and savage seas to meet our 
 
 aching eyes ? " 
 
 " Chide, chide no more, brown Sailorman ; we 
 
 know your hearts of steel " 
 " And we the worth of England's daughters, with 
 
 their love of honest weal." 
 
 " So here's unto the Sailorm2n, his love, his island- 
 home ; 
 
 For whom and which he ploughs the seas, 
 In tropic heat, in Arctic breeze 
 His love, his island-home ; 
 His island-home, his island-home, 
 His island-home and love ! " 
 81
 
 THREE SONNETS
 
 Foam-flecked and fierce, rain-battered, impotent, 
 How heave these liquid hills a dozen ways, 
 Like blind mutes seeking pity in amaze, 
 
 Only to fall crushed, hammered, helpless, pent : 
 
 A rush of wind ! a pause . . . The air is rent 
 By God's resounding booms ! a zigzag blaze 
 Of yellow light that rips the smoking haze 
 
 Of pelted, beaten waves 1 and all are spent. 
 
 A burst of splendour ! And how still 's the air ! 
 
 How warm, translucid, yet how fresh and sweet ! 
 Glad Nature smiles and seems to say, " How fair ! " 
 
 The shimmering sea, cupped into soft retreat 
 By yonder wondrous dome, moves debonair, 
 A smooth-faced, lovely, gentle-seeming cheat.
 
 II 
 
 Alone I strayed, this darkling autumn night, 
 
 Where sullen waves fell white-capped near my 
 
 feet ; 
 On this drawn face soft struck the clammy sleet, 
 
 And ocean dirged her anguish infinite : 
 
 The wind moaned fear, as touched with human 
 
 fright; 
 
 While each dark cave, from out its deep retreat, 
 Gave groaning back the waters but to meet 
 
 Those stern relentless seas upreared to smite ! 
 
 So thought hard beat upon this troubled brain, 
 
 And thundered back in awful impotence, 
 Till madness well-nigh broke the sapping strain. 
 
 Thus toiled this breast, 'neath anguish so immense 
 
 It might have held a thousand torn hearts' pain ; 
 And with the breeze it cried: "Ah, Fate! Why? 
 Whence?"
 
 Ill 
 
 The sea gives forth its dead here, at my feet, 
 Fall spurned-up weeds, and whited bones which 
 
 tell 
 Of ocean's greed and tempest-thundered knell 
 
 Ay, speak of lives up-closed, with hopes full sweet : 
 
 Here foaming rush the waves drop, and retreat ; 
 And leave the battered sands strewn all too well 
 With splintered planks of some fair ship that fell, 
 
 When charged the monstrous, green-seas, wolfish, 
 fleet! 
 
 Back, on the drear repelling beach of Now, 
 
 The sullen tide of retrospection hurls 
 Dead hopes, songs' echoes, and a sullied vow. 
 
 So memory's returning wave up-curls 
 
 Its crest, and strikes this Lethe-wishing brow ; 
 And all the past's dead wreckage round me whirls. 
 
 86
 
 OCEAN MURMURS
 
 THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE 
 
 It chanced upon one summer's perfect day 
 
 That fast in sleep and dreams the lame god lay 
 
 On glistening sands, made golden by 
 
 Olympian Phoebus' life enquickening ray. 
 
 And near the slumbering god's soft bed 
 
 Where round waves rolled by zephyrs led, 
 
 Too slow to tower high 
 
 Some Nereids with the seafoam played, 
 
 And fancifully formed a maid 
 
 O'er beauteous to sigh. 
 
 Bright Phcebus, watching, smiled at their conceit, 
 
 Who sought to make of foam a woman meet 
 
 To fit their fancy's fair demand 
 
 A shape divine, in all but life complete. 
 
 And while he eyed those nymphae play, 
 
 So near the margin of the bay 
 
 That washed the gleaming sand, 
 
 This thought his mind quick seized upon, 
 
 To end the work so far well-done 
 
 Let breath the form expand. 
 
 Thus sprung foam-fashioned Aphrodite there, 
 
 To hold, to wander, suffer and to dare. 
 
 The genial god, 
 
 Unheeding jealous Juno's voiced alarms, 
 
 88
 
 Had kissed that form of lovely make 
 
 Straightway to life, and full awake 
 
 To all her wondrous charms. 
 
 That moment did Hephaestos ope his eyes ; 
 
 The nymphs fell back, in mute dismayed surprise ; 
 
 And, turning, sank in haste below 
 
 To tell their sisters of the marvellous wise 
 
 They made the figure grow. 
 
 Not so the limping god of fire; 
 
 His heart was seized with hot desire 
 
 Possession's white-heat glow ; 
 
 And, springing to his feet, he ran, 
 
 Secured the maid of faultless plan 
 
 And all that beauty could bestow. 
 
 THE CRY OF THE SEA 
 
 There's a sough in the wind as it speeds a-lee, 
 And a greeny streak in yon weather-sky ; 
 There's a sob as of pain in the heaving sea, 
 And a sullen fall to each roller high 
 Yea, wherever it be, there's a cry in the sea 
 That baffles the brain of humanity. 
 
 89 [On
 
 On all hands there's a sound that the seaman knows, 
 But the landsman is dead to, as home he goes : 
 'Tis the moan of the sea in a pent-up state, 
 When the mighty winds for their orders wait 
 That choked, everlasting, primeval cry 
 Of the great wide sea when its peace must die. 
 
 Oh, the ocean's weird cry ! 'tis a mystical thing 
 That's carried afar with a mournful swing 
 When its peace must die, and its waters moan 
 At the death of the calm that was all their own : 
 For, wherever it be, there's a cry in the sea 
 That springs from the source of sympathy. 
 
 There's the crack of the whip of a wind-god ! 
 
 Hark, 
 
 'Tis the whip of a hundred leagues or so ; 
 There's a tremulous heave in yon leeward barque, 
 As she feels the gale she must undergo : 
 Ah, wherever she be, that wild call of the sea 
 She knows as some poor craft's elegy. 
 
 In the trough of the sea, where the birds lie low, 
 And the live green's flecked with a frothing snow, 
 There is hovering a pained, ineffectual cry ; 
 90
 
 While the white-headed courses, leaping high, 
 Heave a snort and a deafening threat as they crash 
 Down the trembling vales, 'neath the storm's wild 
 lash I 
 
 Oh, the shriek of the sea ! 'tis a passionate thing 
 
 That circles the world on the storm-god's wing ! 
 
 The ocean that roars, in tumultuous pain, 
 
 At the savage, irresistible hurricane ! 
 
 For, wherever it be, there is hate in the sea 
 
 To the mighty winds in their tyranny ! . . . 
 
 There's a slower pace in the grey, jagged clouds ; 
 There's regret in the breeze that its strength is spent ; 
 There's a lesser pull on the straining shrouds, 
 And a sigh in the ocean, bespeaking content 
 Yea, wherever it be, there is joy in the sea 
 To regain its broken tranquility. 
 
 There's an arm's-length of blue, and a long slow fall 
 
 In the measured waves as they shoreward crawl ; 
 
 There's a feeling of strained-for relief and rest 
 
 In the ravaged ocean's pain-throbbed breast, 
 
 And a space-filling, low, dull rumble of praise 
 
 For the promised return of gentler days. 
 
 91 [Oh,
 
 Oh, the call of the sea ! 'tis a wondrous thing 
 That stirs a man's heart as a martial ring ; 
 That binds with a glamourous, mystical thong, 
 And leads us afar like a siren's song : 
 But, wherever it be, that weird cry of the sea 
 Still baffles the brain of humanity. 
 
 BALLAD OF THE Ocean Kite 
 
 East-nor'-east a quarter east, 
 
 Like a shark on flying prey, 
 
 When one more spurt would give a feast 
 
 To glut a gormand's day ! 
 
 Went the Ocean Kite, oh, a clipper tight, 
 
 Through the shimmering star-lit spray ! 
 
 Royals in and staysails fast, 
 
 Up she stood like fair renown ! 
 
 Bows into it, on she passed, 
 
 Making tracks for Hoogli's town 1 
 
 Sixteen knots an hour her proud fleet's prouder 
 
 flow'r ! 
 A-running of her easting down. 1 
 
 I. Sixteen knots per hour is what a good sailing ship will 
 often make when running before the strong winds and squalls 
 into which she gets on the other side of the Cape, along the 
 40th parallel of Southern latitude. 
 
 92
 
 From the Cape to Garden Reach, 
 
 Ballasted, for orders, she ; 
 
 And every sail, from luff to leach, 
 
 Straining like a Mate on spree ; 
 
 With her Mersey crew, bully Captain, too, 
 
 More devilish than a hungry sea. 
 
 Came four-bells, the mate's first^watch. 
 
 " Heave the log, and mark it well," 
 
 Smoking, ordered Captain Kotch, 
 
 Then sought the binnacle. . . 
 
 "Off a point"! he yelled, straight the wheelsman 
 
 felled, 
 And sneered, "Galoot shanghaied from hell"! 
 
 Burst the main top-gallant sail ! 
 
 As the man resumed his place ; 
 
 Burst at kiss of freshening gale, 
 
 Tattered in its fierce embrace ! 
 
 " Lower away that sprag ! Get, each mother's rag ! 
 
 And man the weather t' gal'n' brace ! " 
 
 Cried the fighting Skipper, thus, 
 
 Shouting, grasped the poop's fore-rail, 
 
 Curse on curse, a dozen, plus 
 
 93 [Threats
 
 Threats of violence at wholesale. 
 
 Rattled down the spar, flew the white foam far, 
 
 While red-hot orders franked the gale ! 
 
 "Call all hands ! Go, Mister Croft, 
 
 Get that new t' gan' sel bent. 
 
 Up ! you niggers, up aloft " ! 
 
 And up the shrouds they went. . . 
 
 Tatters down at last, gantline a hitched on fast, 
 
 Then up the brand-new sail was sent. . . 
 
 " Spread ! boys, spread along the yard ! 
 
 Haul that weather-earin' out " ! 
 
 Yelled the Bo'sun, hoarse and hard, 
 
 A sailorman devout ; 
 
 On the foot-rope 3 then sat two Swedish men 
 
 The sheets to shackle to their " clout." 
 
 2. A gantline is a rope used for hoisting or lowering a sail 
 or yard. 
 
 3. The foot-rope is that on which men stand to stow or 
 reef a sail. 
 
 94
 
 Round the pumps the Mate tore heav'n ; 
 On the poop the Captain blazed ; 
 Worked aloft that British seven 
 Among the foreign oaths they raised. . . 
 Now the rovings* on, and the gantline gone, 
 " To cut," came orders sulphur-glazed. 
 
 Flashed the knives, on stops 8 they leapt ; 
 
 Bellied out the sail ahead ; 
 
 Sagged below, then upwards swept, 
 
 A monstrous bag of dread ! 
 
 Downwards sent two men marvel 'twas not ten- 
 
 To box the compass of the dead. 
 
 'Thwart the top-sail brace dropped one, 
 Bounded off, then seen no more ; 
 Shrieked the other and was gone, 
 
 4. Rovings are the yarns or pieces of spunyarn used for 
 tying the sails to the jackstays on the yards. 
 
 5. Stops are the yarns that tie the sail in a roll when put 
 in the sail-locker. 
 
 95 [Amid
 
 Amid the leeward roar. 
 
 Bully Skipper then called them fools, not men ; 
 
 And cast their slops 6 the while he swore. 
 
 Off the yard the others sprang ; 
 
 Down went every man but two ; 
 
 Sheets hauled home, the chanty rang, 
 
 What else could sailors do? 
 
 " Sally Brown " was sung up the new sail sprung, 
 
 And tugged to pull the clipper through. 
 
 Loading jute 'bove Garden Reach, 
 
 Said the Skipper to his Mate, 
 
 " Ours the passage now to preach 
 
 The fastest down to date ! 
 
 Lost two damned galoots both in my slop-suits 
 
 And gained two days to square the slate." 
 
 6. Every deep-water ship carries a store of generally 
 very inferior clothes for the men; these are termed "slops," 
 and the seaman who purchases none of them during a voyage 
 is rather a rarity. 
 
 96
 
 TO THE KITTEWAKE AT THE BRIDGE 
 
 What message, what song, or what story, 
 
 O Bird of the surges a-lee, 
 Bring you, in your free-winged glory, 
 
 To drear-thoughted London and me ? 
 Your wings bear a sense of infinities 
 
 That speak of the God of all things. 
 Your grace ? it is that of the lonely seas, 
 
 And your cry is their murmurings. 
 
 What do you, or see you, to keep you 
 
 So far from the rolling wave's crest ? 
 Can these muddy waters e'er reap you 
 
 The splendour of Ocean's clear breast ? 
 Can you, with your memories of vastness, 
 
 Of grandeur too awesome to paint, 
 Here soar in the City's dull fastness, 
 
 Nor shrink at its misery's plaint ? 
 
 Or, say, do you come with your beauty, 
 
 Your wistful, sweet hints of the sea, 
 To speak to us workers of duty ? 
 
 Though rarely comes love as the fee. 
 
 97 [Or
 
 Or is 't that your unspoken tidings 
 
 Are but of the ocean, the breeze, 
 The fair welkin where stars have their hidings 
 
 Then, O God, for those scenes 'stead of these ! 
 
 THE PAGAN'S HYMN TO THE SEA 
 
 Wonder of mysteries, mighty, magnificent, 
 
 Rolling from Ever to Ever again ; 
 Say who has fashioned thee, made thee omnipotent ? 
 Past all our compassing, 
 
 Scoffer at warriors, dread of all men 1 
 Voice that is first in our ears dull and bounded, 
 
 Voice that is strongest and least understood ; 
 Voice of the great Mother Nature unsounded, 
 What is the message that 
 
 Wondrously finds its response in our blood ? 
 
 Teacher of things which our seers cannot read in thee, 
 Stronger than gods in their power divine, 
 
 Tell us what monsters here riot and breed in thee, 
 
 Tell us thy far-aways, 
 While on the land in our narrows we pine. 
 
 98
 
 Thou the Unquestionable, thou the Unknowable, 
 Where lies the might of thy call unto men ? 
 
 Bidding them plow thy fields, green yet unsowable ; 
 
 Caller whom none disobey, 
 Calling and drowning, yet calling again. 
 
 Marvel incomparable, tenderly fawning 
 
 Here on the land-lip thou kissest in grief 
 Grief that thou comest from yonder fair dawning, 
 
 Comest in cunningness, 
 Only to find thyself robbed of thy fief. 
 Here thou may'st roar in thy rushings so thunderous ; 
 Here and no further, says something most strange ; 
 
 Bound to thy tetherings, 
 Emblem of steadfastness, creature of change. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SAIL 
 
 Lazily stretching, and gently fanned by the breath of 
 
 a soft west wind, 
 I pull at my sheets with a careless pull, and a sigh 
 
 at the streak behind. 
 99 [Though
 
 Though it's heigh and yo-ho, when a light wind's aft, 
 
 and the blue sea lies before, 
 To the man at the helm if the pay be good, and 
 
 his ship has a fair salt store. 
 
 Yet the never-to-be of this endless stretch of the 
 
 quietly heaving blue, 
 With its long sunned days and its night-times grand, 
 
 will bear me to no harbours new. 
 
 So I sag at the leach, and my luff flaps loud, while 
 
 the seaman drones his song ; 
 And I creak, through my spars and my halyards stout, 
 
 for a breeze to come along. 
 
 And the winds they are good ay, the winds are 
 brave ; for they leave me not long alone 
 
 To be chafed, as I snap, with impatience keen, for 
 port that I have not known. 
 
 Now some cloud I descry 'neath yon' haloed moon, 
 
 as she tips the idle waves 
 With a glint of her pallid and misty gold on a myriad 
 
 heroes' graves. . . . 
 100
 
 There's a puff up aloft, and a breath alow, of the 
 
 breeze from yonder clouds ; 
 There's a strain at my sheets, while the braces lift, 
 
 and up-tauten weather-shrouds. 
 
 And now over to leeward our good ship leans, under 
 
 press of the freshening breeze ; 
 As I know, and the spars and the sailors know, that 
 
 here ends our slothful ease. 
 
 For my bolt-ropes are tugging like horses wild, and 
 
 the white foam flies ahead ; 
 While away there astern is a seething track, where 
 
 before lay waters dead ! 
 
 Here's a thong of the sea, in a flying spray, which 
 
 would whip the old moon young ! 
 And it whistles a stave of an air so weird that no 
 
 mortal man could tongue. 
 
 There's a paean of strength in the rushing wind, 
 
 when it rounds us sails like bags ; 
 When it snatches the seas in its militant sweep, 
 
 but to tear them into rags ! 
 101 ['Tis
 
 Tis the anthem of Energy, wild and fierce, as it 
 
 bursts from Nature's heart ! 
 'Tis the anthem that never musician shall set, till 
 
 honour and honesty part ! 
 
 There's the force of a world, at its primal strength, 
 
 in these rollers long and green, 
 As they thunder along in their measureless might 
 
 and their majesty serene ! 
 
 Then it's oh-heigh-ho to the fearless breeze, to the 
 
 sweeping waters high, 
 To us bellying sails, to the drum-tight craft and the 
 
 "post-boy"* dotted sky ! 
 
 There's a wonderful sense of infinite strength, of the 
 
 grace of force at work, 
 In the rushing breeze and the flying ship and the 
 
 smoking seas and murk ! 
 
 And it's thus that I chase me the reddening sun this 
 
 universe around, 
 That I shorten the days, as I travel east, till my final 
 
 port is found. 
 
 *" Post-boys" are little, ragged, black clouds which often 
 accompany the beginning of a long, hard blow in high latitudes. 
 
 102
 
 The Autobiography of a Nature's Nomad 
 
 MY VAGABONDAGE 
 
 By J. E. PATTERSON 
 
 DEMY 8vo. 8/6 NET 
 
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 read for many yea.K."Athetueum. 
 
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 " Mr. Patterson has recovered the art of Defoe." The Bookman. 
 
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 from the first page to the last." Bookseller. 
 
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 been through." Bystander. 
 
 " In his love of the open air, in his interest in life, and his gift of putting 
 his personality into his writing, Mr. Patterson often reminds us of George 
 Borrow." Christian World. 
 
 "Sincere and natural. It is delightful. . . . Realistic, with the 
 wholesome realism of the man who has been close to Nature." 
 
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 enthralling." Daily Express. 
 
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 taking its place among the most remarkable intimacies Of literature." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "Mr. Patterson is as much a born story-teller as Louis Stevenson 
 himself." East Anglian Daily Times. 
 
 " In many respects the book is unique. ... It takes the reader back to 
 elemental things." Eastern Daily Press. 
 
 ' ' Not since Captain Marryat's harum-scarum sailors have we found anything 
 more absorbing than some of these adventures." Evening News. 
 
 William Heinemann, 21, Bedford Street, London, W.G.
 
 MY VAGABONDAGE : Some Press Opinions (Continued). 
 
 "A book full of vigour and passion, yet marked by the restraint of 
 experience and culture. . . . The whole impression is extraordinarily 
 Tivid and life-like." Evening Times. 
 
 " This book rings true, and through its sincerity and humanity already is a 
 classic. . . . One of the personalities of literature." T.P.'s Weekly. 
 
 " We close his ' Vagabondage ' with a feeling that we hare been out in the 
 resh air of the wilds of the world." Freeman's Journal. 
 
 " Both as psychology and narrative ' My Vagabondage ' is a book to be read 
 and pondered." Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " A human document of first importance. . . . Absolutely just." 
 
 Illustrated London News. 
 
 " Mr. Patterson hat lived a man's life. His pluck commands our respect, 
 and his literary ability is assuredly remarkable." Literary World. 
 
 ' ' There is more thrilling adventure and varied experience in it than a dozen 
 normal authors could make out by clubbing their lives into one." Madame. 
 
 "Mr. Patterson writes with vividness and energy. His book has the 
 interest of a direct narrative of personal experience." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " His call is'individual, virile and strong, and will echo down the ringing 
 groves of change long after more clamorous notes are stifled." 
 
 Manchester Courier. 
 
 " Borrow, who also wandered ; Mr. Conrad, who knows the sea ; Querido, 
 who knows the hard ungenerous soil, could never have written such a book as 
 this." Morning Leader. 
 
 "Mr. Patterson's work combines a Pre-Raphaelite accuracy of detail, 
 together with that mastery of magnitudes which is a characteristic of the 
 better sort of Impressionists." Morning Post. 
 
 " The book is a human document of great interest." The Nation. 
 " The book is as interesting as a novel." fall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Patterson's books have given him a place amongst those living 
 writers who ' count.' " St. James's Gazette. 
 
 "The freshness and vigour stamp the writer as an author of strong 
 individuality and high literary attainment." Scotsman. 
 
 "Designed without straining and without affectation, yet with a cumulative 
 effect, which proves Mr. Patterson to be moving under wide and generous 
 conceptions." Spectator. 
 
 "The fascination of Mr. Patterson's story lies in the fact that he was from 
 the first a rollicking stone." The Times. 
 
 " Told with a boy's gusto, but with an artist's selection and expression." 
 
 Truth. 
 
 " Mr. Patterson is an original . . . even comparable with Thomas 
 Hardy." Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 
 
 William Heinemann, 21, Bedford Street, London, W.C. 
 
 Woods Sr Sons, Ltd., Printers, London, N.
 
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