Part 3 (1/2)

Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's long dead,-- I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead; Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife, And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!

THE STORY OF THE ”ORIENT”

'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory, English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door, Florid-faced, the man-o'-war's-man told his white-head boy the story, n.o.ble story of Aboukir, told a hundred times before.

”Here, the _Theseus_--here, the _Vanguard_;” as he spoke each name sonorous,-- _Minotaur, Defence, Majestic_, stanch old comrades of the brine, That against the s.h.i.+ps of Brucys made their broadsides roar in chorus,-- Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line.

Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might a man left-handed, Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar.

While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded, Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutla.s.s-scar.

For he served aboard the _Vanguard_, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed.

Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding, Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered, flashed, and screamed.

Till a cry swelled loud and louder,--towered on fire the _Orient_ stately, Brucys' flag-s.h.i.+p, she that carried guns a hundred and a score; Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately, Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more.

”'Lower the boats!' was Nelson's order.”-- But the listening boy beside him, Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye, Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him, Here, with childhood's crude consistence, broke the tale to question ”Why?”

For by children facts go streaming in a throng that never pauses, Noted not, till, of a sudden, thought, a sunbeam, gilds the motes, All at once the known words quicken, and the child would deal with causes.

Since to kill the French was righteous, why bade Nelson lower the boats?

Quick the man put by the question. ”But the _Orient_, none could save her; We could see the s.h.i.+ps, the ensigns, clear as daylight by the flare; And a many leaped and left her; but, G.o.d rest 'em! some were braver; Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to G.o.d knows where.”

At the shock, he said, the _Vanguard_ shook through all her timbers oaken; It was like the shock of Doomsday,--not a tar but shuddered hard.

All was hushed for one strange moment; then that awful calm was broken By the heavy plash that answered the descent of mast and yard.

So, her cannon still defying, and her colors flaming, flying, In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead, Soared the _Orient_ into darkness with her living and her dying: ”Yet our lads made s.h.i.+ft to rescue three-score souls,” the seaman said.

Long the boy with knit brows wondered o'er that friending of the foeman; Long the man with shut lips pondered; powerless he to tell the cause Why the brother in his bosom that desired the death of no man, In the crash of battle wakened, snapped the bonds of hate like straws.

While he mused, his toddling maiden drew the daisies to a posy; Mild the bells of Sunday morning rang across the church-yard sod; And, helped on by tender hands, with st.u.r.dy feet all bare and rosy, Climbed his babe to mother's breast, as climbs the slow world up to G.o.d.

A RESURRECTION

_Neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead_.

I was quick in the flesh, was warm, and the live heart shook my breast; In the market I bought and sold, in the temple I bowed my head.

I had swathed me in shows and forms, and was honored above the rest For the sake of the life I lived; nor did any esteem me dead.

But at last, when the hour was ripe--was it sudden-remembered word?

Was it sight of a bird that mounted, or sound of a strain that stole?