Volume I Part 42 (1/2)

The wave's heart, exalted, Leaps forward to meet us, The sun on the sea-wave Lies white as the moon: The soft sapphire-vaulted Deep heaven smiles to greet us, Free sons of the free-wave All singing one tune.

_The same sun is o'er us, The same Love shall find us, The same and none other, Wherever we be; With the same goal before us, The same home behind us, England, our mother, Queen of the sea._

At last a faint-flushed April Dawn arose With milk-white arms up-binding golden clouds Of fragrant hair behind her lovely head; And lo, before the bright black plunging prows The whole sea suddenly shattered into shoals Of rolling porpoises. Everywhere they tore The glittering water. Like a moving crowd Of black bright rocks washed smooth by foaming tides, They thrilled the unconscious fancy of the crews With subtle, wild, and living hints of land.

And soon Columbus' happy signals came, The signs that saved him when his mutineers Despaired at last and clamoured to return,-- And there, with awe triumphant in their eyes, They saw, lazily tossing on the tide, A drift of seaweed, and a berried branch, Which silenced them as if they had seen a Hand Writing with fiery letters on the deep, Then a black cormorant, vulture of the sea, With neck outstretched and one long ominous _honk_, Went hurtling past them to its unknown bourne.

A mighty white-winged albatross came next; Then flight on flight of clamorous clanging gulls; And last, a wild and sudden shout of ”Land!”

Echoed from crew to crew across the waves.

Then, dumb upon the rigging as they hung Staring at it, a menace chilled their blood.

For like _Il Gran Nemico_ of Dante, dark, Ay, coloured like a thunder-cloud, from North To South, in front, there slowly rose to sight A country like a dragon fast asleep Along the West, with wrinkled, purple wings Ending in ragged forests o'er its spine; And with great craggy claws out-thrust, that turned (As the dire distances dissolved their veils) To promontories bounding a huge bay.

There o'er the hushed and ever shallower tide The staring s.h.i.+ps drew nigh and thought, ”Is this The Dragon of our Golden Apple Tree, The guardian of the fruit of our desire Which grows in gardens of the Hesperides Where those three sisters weave a white-armed dance Around it everlastingly, and sing Strange songs in a strange tongue that still convey Warning to heedful souls?” Nearer they drew, And now, indeed, from out a soft blue-grey Mingling of colours on that coast's deep flank There crept a garden of enchantment, height O'er height, a garden sloping from the hills, Wooded as with Aladdin's trees that bore All-coloured cl.u.s.tering gems instead of fruit; Now vaster as it grew upon their eyes, And like some Roman amphitheatre Cirque above mighty cirque all round the bay, With jewels and flowers ablaze on women's b.r.e.a.s.t.s Innumerably confounded and confused; While lovely faces flushed with l.u.s.t of blood, Rank above rank upon their tawny thrones In soft barbaric splendour lapped, and lulled By the low thunderings of a thousand lions, Luxuriously smiled as they bent down Over the scarlet-splashed and steaming sands To watch the white-limbed gladiators die.

Such fears and dreams for Francis Drake, at least, Rose and dissolved in his nigh fevered brain As they drew near that equatorial sh.o.r.e; For rumours had been borne to him; and now He knew not whether to impute the wrong To his untrustful mind or to believe Doughty a traitorous liar; yet there seemed Proof and to spare. A thousand shadows rose To mock him with their veiled indicative hands.

And each alone he laid and exorcised But for each doubt he banished, one returned From darker depths to mock him o'er again.

So, in that bay, the little fleet sank sail And anch.o.r.ed; and the wild reality Behind those dreams towered round them on the hills, Or so it seemed. And Drake bade lower a boat, And went ash.o.r.e with sixteen men to seek Water; and, as they neared the embowered beach, Over the green translucent tide there came, A hundred yards from land, a drowsy sound Immeasurably repeated and prolonged, As of innumerable elfin drums Dreamily mustering in the tropic bloom.

This from without they heard, across the waves; But when they glided into a flowery creek Under the sharp black shadows of the trees-- Jaca and Mango and Palm and red festoons Of garlanded Liana wreaths--it ebbed Into the murmur of the mighty fronds, Prodigious leaves whose veinings bore the fresh Impression of the finger-prints of G.o.d.

There humming-birds, like flakes of purple fire Upon some pa.s.sing seraph's plumage, beat And quivered in blinding blots of golden light Between the embattled cactus and cardoon; While one huge whisper of primeval awe Seemed to await the cool green eventide When G.o.d should walk His Garden as of old.

Now as the boats were plying to and fro Between the s.h.i.+ps and that enchanted sh.o.r.e, Drake bade his comrades tarry a little and went Apart, alone, into the trackless woods.

Tormented with his thoughts, he saw all round Once more the battling image of his mind, Where there was nought of man, only the vast Unending silent struggle of t.i.tan trees, Large internecine twistings of the world, The hushed death-grapple and the still intense Locked anguish of Laoc.o.o.ns that gripped Death by the throat for thrice three hundred years, Once, like a subtle mockery overhead, Some black-armed chattering ape swung swiftly by, But he strode onward, thinking--”Was it false, False all that kind outreaching of the hands?

False? Was there nothing certain, nothing sure In those divinest aisles and towers of Time Wherein we took sweet counsel? Is there nought Sure but the solid dust beneath our feet?

Must all those lovelier fabrics of the soul, Being so divinely bright and delicate, Waver and s.h.i.+ne no longer than some poor Prismatic aery bubble? Ay, they burst, And all their glory shrinks into one tear No bitterer than some idle love-lorn maid Sheds for her dead canary. G.o.d, it hurts, This, this hurts most, to think how we must miss What might have been, for nothing but a breath, A babbling of the tongue, an argument, Or such a poor contention as involves The thrones and dominations of this earth,-- How many of us, like seed on barren ground, Must miss the flower and harvest of their prayers, The living light of friends.h.i.+p and the grasp Which for its very meaning once implied Eternities of utterance and the life Immortal of two souls beyond the grave?”

Now, wandering upward ever, he reached and clomb The slope side of a fern-fringed precipice, And, at the summit, found an opening glade, Whence, looking o'er the forest, he beheld The sea; and, in the land-locked bay below, Far, far below, his elfin-tiny s.h.i.+ps, All six at anchor on the crawling tide!

Then onward, upward, through the woods once more He plunged with bursting heart and burning brow; And, once again, like madness, the black shapes Of doubt swung through his brain and chattered and laughed, Till he upstretched his arms in agony And cursed the name of Doughty, cursed the day They met, cursed his false face and courtier smiles, ”For oh,” he cried, ”how easy a thing it were For truth to wear the garb of truth! This proves His treachery!” And there, at once, his thoughts Tore him another way, as thus, ”And yet If he were false, is he not subtle enough To hide it? Why, this proves his innocence-- This very courtly carelessness which I, Black-hearted evil-thinker as I am, In my own clumsier spirit so misjudge!

These children of the court are b.u.t.terflies Fluttering hither and thither, and I--poor fool-- Would fix them to a stem and call them flowers, Nay, bid them grasp the ground like towering oaks And shadow all the zenith;” and yet again The madness of distrustful friends.h.i.+p gleamed From his fierce eyes, ”Oh villain, d.a.m.ned villain, G.o.d's murrain on his heart! I know full well He hides what he can hide! He wears no fault Upon the gloss and frippery of his breast!

It is not that! It is the hidden things, Unseizable, the things I do not know, Ay, it is these, these, these and these alone That I mistrust.”

And, as he walked, the skies Grew full of threats, and now enormous clouds Rose mammoth-like above the ensanguined deep, Trampling the daylight out; and, with its death Dyed purple, rushed along as if they meant To obliterate the world. He took no heed.

Though that strange blackness brimmed the branching aisles With horror, he strode on till in the gloom, Just as his winding way came out once more Over a precipice that o'erlooked the bay, There, as he went, not gazing down, but up, He saw what seemed a ponderous granite cliff, A huge ribbed sh.e.l.l upon a lonely sh.o.r.e Left by forgotten mountains when they sank Back to earth's breast like billows on a sea.

A tall and whispering crowd of tree-ferns waved Mysterious fringes round it. In their midst He flung himself at its broad base, with one Sharp s.h.i.+vering cry of pain, ”Show me Thy ways, O G.o.d, teach me Thy paths! I am in the dark!

Lighten my darkness!”

Almost as he spoke There swept across the forest, far and wide, Gathering power and volume as it came, A sound as of a rus.h.i.+ng mighty wind; And, overhead, like great black gouts of blood Wrung from the awful forehead of the Night The first drops fell and ceased. Then, suddenly, Out of the darkness, earth with all her seas, Her little s.h.i.+ps at anchor in the bay (Five ebony s.h.i.+ps upon a sheet of silver, Drake saw not that, indeed, Drake saw not that!), Her woods, her boughs, her leaves, her tiniest twigs.

Leapt like a hunted stag through one immense Lightning of revelation into the murk Of Erebus: then heaven o'er rending heaven Shattered and crashed down ruin over the world.

But, in that deeper darkness, Francis Drake Stood upright now, and with blind outstretched arms Groped at that strange forgotten cliff and sh.e.l.l Of mystery; for in that flash of light aeons had pa.s.sed; and now the Thing in front Made his blood freeze with memories that lay Behind his Memory. In the gloom he groped, And with dark hands that knew not what they knew, As one that shelters in the night, unknowing, Beneath a stranded s.h.i.+pwreck, with a cry He touched the enormous rain-washed belted ribs And bones like battlements of some Mastodon Embedded there until the trump of doom.

After long years, long centuries, perchance, Triumphantly some other pioneer Would stand where Drake now stood and read the tale Of ages where he only felt the cold Touch in the dark of some huge mystery; Yet Drake might still be nearer to the light Who now was whispering from his great deep heart, ”Show me Thy ways, O G.o.d, teach me Thy paths!”

And there by some strange instinct, oh, he felt G.o.d's answer there, as if he grasped a hand Across a gulf of twice ten thousand years; And he regained his lost magnificence Of faith in that great Harmony which resolves Our discords, faith through all the ruthless laws Of nature in their lovely pitilessness, Faith in that Love which outwardly must wear, Through all the sorrows of eternal change, The splendour of the indifference of G.o.d.

All round him through the heavy purple gloom Sloped the soft rush of silver-arrowed rain, Loosening the skies' hard anguish, as with tears.

Once more he felt his unity with all The vast composure of the universe, And drank deep at the fountains of that peace Which comprehends the tumult of our days.

But with that peace the power to act returned; And, with his back against the Mastodon, He stared through the great darkness tow'rds the sea.

The rain ceased for a moment: only the slow Drip of the dim droop-feathered palms all round Deepened the hush.

Then, out of the gloom once more The whole earth leapt to sight with all her woods, Her boughs, her leaves, her tiniest twigs distinct For one wild moment; but Drake only saw The white flash of her seas and there, oh there That land-locked bay with those five elfin s.h.i.+ps, Five elfin ebony s.h.i.+ps upon a sheet Of wrinkled silver! Then, as the thunder followed, One thought burst through his brain-- _One s.h.i.+p was gone!_ Over the grim precipitous edge he hung, An eagle waiting for the lightning now To swoop upon his prey. One iron hand Gripped a rough tree-root like a bunch of snakes; And, as the rain rushed round him, far away He saw to northward yet another flash, A scribble of G.o.d's finger in the sky Over a waste of white stampeding waves.

His eye flashed like a falchion as he saw it, And from his lips there burst the sea-king's laugh; For there, with a fierce joy he knew, he knew Doughty, at last--an open mutineer!

An open foe to fight! Ay, there she went,-- His _Golden Hynde_, his little _Golden Hynde_ A wild deserter scudding to the North.

And, almost ere the lightning, Drake had gone Cras.h.i.+ng down the face of the precipice, By a narrow water-gully, and through the huge Forest he tore the straight and perilous way Down to the sh.o.r.e; while, three miles to the North, Upon the wet p.o.o.p of the _Golden Hynde_ Doughty stood smiling. Scarce would he have smiled Knowing that Drake had seen him from that tower Amidst the thunders; but, indeed, he thought He had escaped unseen amidst the storm.

Many a day he had worked upon the crew, Fanning their fears and doubts until he won The more part to his side. And when they reached That coast, he showed them how Drake meant to sail Southward, into that unknown Void; but he Would have them suddenly slip by stealth away Northward to Darien, showing them what a life Of roystering glory waited for them there, If, laying aside this empty quest, they joined The merry feasters round those island fires Which over many a dark-blue creek illumed Buccaneer camps in scarlet logwood groves, Fringing the Gulf of Mexico, till dawn Summoned the Black Flags out to sweep the sea.

But when Drake reached the flower-embowered boat And found the men awaiting his return There, in a sheltering grove of bread-fruit trees Beneath great eaves of leaf.a.ge that obscured Their sight, but kept the storm out, as they tossed Pieces of eight or rattled the bone dice, His voice went through them like a thunderbolt, For none of them had seen the _Golden Hynde_ Steal from the bay; and now the billows burst Like cannon down the coast; and they had thought Their boat could not be launched until the storm Abated. Under Drake's compelling eyes, Nevertheless, they poled her down the creek Without one word, waiting their chance. Then all Together with their brandished oars they thrust, And on the fierce white out-draught of a wave They shot up, up and over the toppling crest Of the next, and plunged cras.h.i.+ng into the trough Behind it: then they settled at their thwarts, And the fierce water boiled before their blades As, with Drake's iron hand upon the helm, They soared and crashed across the rolling seas.

Not for the Spanish prize did Drake now steer, But for that little s.h.i.+p the _Marygold_, Swiftest of sail, next to the _Golden Hynde_, And, in the hands of Francis Drake, indeed Swiftest of all; and ere the seamen knew What power, as of a wind, bore them along, Anchor was up, their hands were on the sheets, The sails were broken out, the _Marygold_ Was flying like a storm-cloud to the North, And on her p.o.o.p an iron statue still As death stood Francis Drake.