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(From Ranolf and Amohia)
IN deep blue sky the sun is bright; | |
| The port some few miles off in sight; | |
| The pleasant sea’s subsiding swell | |
| Of gales for days gone by may tell, | |
| But on the bar no breaker white, | 5 |
| Only as yet a heavier roll | |
| Denotes where lurks that dangerous shoal. | |
| Alert with lead and chart and glass, | |
| The pilot seeks the well-known pass; | |
| All his familiar marks in view | 10 |
| Together brought, distinct and true. | |
| Erelong the tide’s decreasing stream | |
| Chafes at the nearer bank beneath; | |
| The sea’s dark face begins to gleam | |
| (Like tiger roused that shows his teeth) | 15 |
| With many a white foam-streak and seam: | |
| Still should the passage, though more rough, | |
| Have depth of water, width enough. | |
| But why, though fair the wind and filled | |
| The sails, though masts and cordage strain, | 20 |
| Why hangs, as by enchantment stilled, | |
| The ship unmoving? All in vain | |
| The helm is forced hard down; ’t is plain | |
| The shoal has shifted, and the ship | |
| Has touched, but o’er its tail, may slip: | 25 |
| She strains,—she moves,—a moment’s bound, | |
| She makes ahead,—then strikes again | |
| With greater force the harder ground. | |
| She broaches to, her broadside black | |
| Full in the breakers’ headlong track; | 30 |
| They leap like tigers on their prey; | |
| She rolls as on they come amain, | |
| Rolls heavily as in writhing pain. | |
| The precious time flies fast away,— | |
| The launch is swiftly manned and sent | 35 |
| Over the lee, with wild intent | |
| To anchor grapplings where the tide | |
| Runs smoother, and the ship might ride | |
| Secure beyond the raging bar, | |
| Could they but haul her off so far. | 40 |
| The boat against her bows is smashed; | |
| Beneath the savage surges dashed, | |
| Sucked under by the refluent wave, | |
| They vanish, all those seamen brave. | |
| On, on,—the breakers press,—no check, | 45 |
| No pause,—fly hissing o’er the wreck, | |
| And scour along the dangerous deck. | |
| The bulwarks on the seaward side, | |
| Boats, rudder, stern-post iron-tied | |
| With deep-driven bolts,—how vain a stay! | 50 |
| The weight of waters tears away. | |
| Alas! and nothing can be done,— | |
| No downward-hoisted flag, no gun | |
| Be got at to give greater stress | |
| To that unheard demand for aid | 55 |
| By the lost ship’s whole aspect made,— | |
| Herself, in piteous helplessness, | |
| One huge sad signal of distress. | |
| Still on and on, the tide’s return | |
| Redoubling now their rage and bulk, | 60 |
| In one fierce sweep from stem to stern | |
| The thundering sheets of breakers roar, | |
| High as the tops in spray-clouds soar, | |
| And down in crashing cataracts pour | |
| Over the rolling tortured hulk. | 65 |
| Death glares in every horrid shape,— | |
| No help, no mercy, no escape! | |
| For falling spars dash out the brains | |
| Of some, and flying guns adrift, | |
| Or splinters crush them,—slaughter swift | 70 |
| Whereof no slightest trace remains, | |
| The furious foam no bloodshed stains: | |
| Up to the yards and tops they go,— | |
| No hope, no chance of life below! | |
| Then as each ponderous groaning mast | 75 |
| Rocks loosened from its hold at last, | |
| The shrouds and stays, now hanging slack, | |
| Now jerking, bounding tensely back, | |
| Fling off the helpless victims fast, | |
| Like refuse on the yeast of death | 80 |
| That bellows, raves, and boils beneath. | |
| One hapless wretch around his waist | |
| A knotted rope has loosely braced; | |
| When from the stay to which he clings | |
| The jerking mast the doomed one flings, | 85 |
| It slips, and by the neck he swings: | |
| Death grins and glares in hideous shape,— | |
| No hope, no pity, no escape! | |
| Still on and on, all day the same, | |
| Through all that brilliant summer day | 90 |
| Beneath a sky so blithe and blue | |
| The wild white whirl of waters flew, | |
| In stunning volleys overswept | |
| And beat the black ship’s yielding frame, | |
| And all around roared, tossed, and leapt | 95 |
| Mad-wreathing swathes of snow! affray | |
| More dire than most disastrous rout | |
| Of some conceivable array | |
| Of thronged white elephants,—as they | |
| Their phalanx broke in warfare waged | 100 |
| In Siam or the Punjaub,—raged | |
| And writhed their great white trunks about, | |
| With screams that shrill as trumpets rung, | |
| And drove destruction everywhere | |
| In maddened terror at the shout | 105 |
| Of turbaned hosts and torches’ flare | |
| Full in their monstrous faces flung;— | |
| Wide horror! but to this, no less, | |
| This furious lashing wilderness, | |
| Innocuous-seeming, transient, tame! | 110 |
| Still on, still on, like fiends of Hell | |
| Whiter than angels, frantic, fell, | |
| Through all that summer day the same | |
| The merciless murderous breakers came, | |
| And to the mizzen-top that swayed | 115 |
| With every breach those breakers made, | |
| Unaided, impotent to aid, | |
| The mates and master clung all day. | |
| There, while the sun onlooking gay | |
| Triumphant trod his bright highway,— | 120 |
| There, till his cloudless rich decline, | |
| Faint in the blinding deafening drench | |
| Of salt waves roaring down the whine | |
| And creaking groans each grinding wrench | |
| Took from the tortured timbers,—there | 125 |
| All day, all day, in their despair, | |
| The gently brave, the roughly good, | |
| Collected, calm and silent stood. | |
| That hideous doom they firmly face; | |
| To no unmanly moans give way, | 130 |
| No frantic gestures; none disgrace | |
| With wild bravado, vain display, | |
| Their end, but like true men await | |
| The dread extremity of fate. | |
| Alas! and yet no tongue can tell | 135 |
| What thoughts of life and loved ones swell | |
| With anguish irrepressible, | |
| The hearts these horrors fail to quell. | |
| The master urges them to prayer, | |
| “No hope on earth, be heaven your care!” | 140 |
| And is it mockery—Oh, but mark | |
| Those masts and crowding figures, dark | |
| Against the flush of love and rest | |
| Suffusing all the gorgeous west | |
| In tearful golden glory drest,— | 145 |
| Such soft majestic tenderness, | |
| As of a power that longs to bless | |
| With ardors of divinest breath | |
| All but one raging spot of death; | |
| For all the wide expanse beside | 150 |
| Is blushing, beauteous as a bride, | |
| And a fierce wedding-day indeed | |
| It seems, of Life and Death, with none to heed. | |
| |
| And now the foam spurts up between | |
| The starting deck-planks; downward bowed | 155 |
| The mighty masts terrific lean; | |
| Then each with its despairing crowd | |
| Of life, with one tremendous roar | |
| Falls like a tower,—and all is o’er. | |
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