Part 1 (2/2)

”You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port Mahon!”

Then came the Cook's ”Is that the Dauber there?

Why don't you leave them stinking paints alone?

They stink the house out, poisoning all the air.

Just take them out.” ”Where to?” ”I don't care where.

I won't have stinking paint here.” From their plates: ”That's right; wet paint breeds fever,” growled his mates.

He took his still wet drawings from the berth And climbed the ladder to the deck-house top; Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth, For two s.h.i.+p's boys were putting on the strop: One, clambering up to let the skylight drop, Saw him bend down beneath a boat and lay His drawings there, till all were hid away,

And stand there silent, leaning on the boat, Watching the constellations rise and burn, Until the beauty took him by the throat, So stately is their glittering overturn; Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn With banners rising and falling, and pa.s.sing by Over the empty silence of the sky.

The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails, Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night, The high trucks traced on heaven and left no trails; The moonlight made the topsails almost white, The pa.s.sing sidelight seemed to drip green light.

And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright bows; He sighed, ”I'll never do't,” and left the house.

”Now,” said the reefer, ”up! Come, Sam; come, Si, Dauber's been hiding something.” Up they slid, Treading on naked tiptoe stealthily To grope for treasure at the long-boat skid.

”Drawings!” said Sam. ”Is this what Dauber hid?

Lord! I expected pudding, not this rot.

Still, come, we'll have some fun with what we've got.”

They smeared the paint with turpentine until They could remove with mess-clouts every trace Of quick perception caught by patient skill, And lines that had brought blood into his face.

They wiped the pigments off, and did erase, With knives, all sticking clots. When they had done.

Under the boat they laid them every one.

All he had drawn since first he came to sea, His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them there.

They chuckled then to think how mad he'd be Finding his paintings vanished into air.

Eight bells were struck, and feet from everywhere Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark; The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red spark.

Names in the darkness pa.s.sed and voices cried; The red spark glowed and died, the faces seemed As things remembered when a brain has died, To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed.

Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed, And on the clipper rushed with tossing mast, A bath of flame broke round her as she pa.s.sed.

The watch was set, the night came, and the men Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep, Bunched like the dead; still, like the dead, as when Plague in a city leaves none even to weep.

The s.h.i.+p's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep; The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars: South-west by south she staggered under the stars.

Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake Thinking of his unfitness for the sea.

Each failure, each derision, each mistake, There in the life not made for such as he; A morning grim with trouble sure to be, A noon of pain from failure, and a night Bitter with men's contemning and despite.

This in the first beginning, the green leaf, Still in the Trades before bad weather fell; What harvest would he reap of hate and grief When the loud Horn made every life a h.e.l.l?

When the sick s.h.i.+p lay over, clanging her bell, And no time came for painting or for drawing, But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing?

h.e.l.l, he expected,--h.e.l.l. His eyes grew blind; The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled, And then a gush of pity calmed his mind.

The cruel torment of his thought was m.u.f.fled, Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman shuffled, Humming his song, and through the open door A moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor.

The green bunk curtains moved, the bra.s.s rings clicked, The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning, The moonbeams' moving finger touched and picked, And all the stars in all the sky were burning.

”This is the art I've come for, and am learning, The sea and s.h.i.+ps and men and travelling things.

It is most proud, whatever pain it brings.”

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