Over the wooded shore-line,
Where the hidden rivers stray
Down to the sea like timid girls,
I saw in the first faint gray
A burst of cloudy topsails
Go blowing swiftly by,
With the stars aswirl behind them
Like bright dust down the sky.
Gone were the days of waiting,
And the long, blind search was gone;
With a cheer we swung to meet them
On the forefoot of the dawn.
Out of the screening woodland
Into the open sound
The frigate crashed, then staggered
Careening, fast aground.
White water tugged behind us,
We felt the _Henry_ reel
And spin as the hard impartial sand
Closed on her vibrant keel.
All through the high white morning,
While the lagging tide crawled out,
Fate held us bound and waiting,
While, turn and turn about,
We manned the fuming cannon
And bartered hell for hell,
While the scuppers sang with coursing life
Where the dead and dying fell.
Till, like the break of fever
When life thrills up through pain,
We felt the current stirring
Under the keel again.
Then it was hand to cutlass,
And pistols in the sash.
"All hands stand by for boarding,--
Now, close abeam and lash!"
But the ensign that had mocked us
With its symbol of the dead
Fluttered and dropped to the bloody deck,
And a white square spoke instead.
Home from the kill we thundered
On the tail of the equinox,
To the thrum of straining canvas,
And the whine and groan of blocks.
Leaping clear of the shallows,
Chancing the creaming bars,
We heard the first faint cheering
As the late sun limned our spars.
Safe in the lee of the city
We moored in the afterglow,
The _Sea Nymph_ and the _Henry_
With the buccaneers in tow.
Glad we had been in the going,
But God! it was good to come
Out of the sky-wide loneliness
To the walls and lights of home.
V
Under these shouldering rows of stone
That notch the quiet sky;
Under the asphalt's transient seal
The same old mud-flats lie;
And I have felt them surge and lift
At night as I passed by.
Yes, I have seen them sprawling nude
While an Autumn moon hung chill,
And the tide came shuddering in from sea,
Lift by lift, until
It held them under a silver mesh,
Responsive to its will.
Then slowly out from the crowding walls
I have seen the gibbets grow,
And stand against the empty sky
In a desolate, windblown row,
While their dancers swayed, and turned, and spun,
Tripping it heel and toe;
With a flash of gold where the peering moon
Saw an earring as it swung,
And a silver line that leapt and died
Where the salt-white sea-boots hung,
And the pitiful, nodding, silent heads,
With half of their songs unsung.