Work and Profession

'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul's as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
These are our realms, no limits to their sway
Our
flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;
Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!
whom slumber soothes not pleasure
cannot please Oh,
who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,
The exulting sense the
pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?
That for itself can woo the approaching fight,
And turn what some deem danger to delight;
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal,
And where the feebler faint can only feel Feel
to
the rising bosom's inmost core,
Its hope awaken and Its spirit soar?
No dread of death if with us die our foes Save
that it seems even duller than repose:
Come when it will we
snatch the life of life When
lost what
recks it but disease or strife?
Let him who crawls enamour'd of decay,
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away:
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;
Ours the
fresh turf; and not the feverish bed.
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,
Ours with one pang one
bound escapes
control.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,
And they who loath'd his life may gild his grave:
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
For us, even banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that crowns our memory;
And the brief epitaph in danger's day,
When those who win at length divide the prey,
And cry, Remembrance saddening o'er each brow,
How had the brave who fell exulted now!'


II.
Such were the notes that from the Pirate's isle
Around the kindling watchfire
rang the while:
Such were the sounds that thrill'd the rocks along,
And unto ears as rugged seem'd a song!
In scatter'd groups upon the golden sand,
They gamecarouseconverseor
whet the brand:
Select the armsto
each his blade assign,
And careless eye the blood that dims its shine.

Repair the boat, replace the helm or oar,
While others straggling muse along the shore:
For the wild bird the busy springes set,
Or spread beneath the sun the dripping net:
Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies
With all the 'thirsting eve of Enterprise:
Tell o'er the tales of many a night of toil,
And marvel where they next shall seize a spoil:
No matter wheretheir
chief's allotment this;
Theirs, to believe no prey nor plan amiss.
But who that CHIEF? his name on every shore
Is famed and fear'd they
ask and know no more.
With these he mingles not but to command;
Few are his words, but keen his eye and hand.
Ne'er seasons he with mirth their jovial mess
But they forgive his silence for success.
Ne'er for his lip the purpling cup they fill,
That goblet passes him untasted still And
for his fare the
rudest of his crew
Would that, in turn, have pass'd untasted too;
Earth's coarsest bread, the garden's homeliest roots,
And scarce the summer luxury of fruits,
His short repast in humbleness supply
With all a hermit's board would scarce deny.
But while he shuns the grosser joys of sense,
His mind seems nourish'd by that abstinence.
'Steer to that shore! ' they
sail. 'Do this!' '
tis done:
'Now form and follow me!' the
spoil is won.
Thus prompt his accents and his actions still,
And all obey and few inquire his will;
So To such, brief answer and contemptuous eye
Convey reproof, nor further deign reply.


III.
'A sail! sail!
' a
promised prize to Hope!
Her nation flag
how
speaks the telescope?
No prize, alas! but yet a welcome sail:
The bloodred
signal glitters in the gale.
Yes she
is ours a
home returning
bark Blow
fair thou breeze! she
anchors ere the dark.
Already doubled is the cape our
bay
Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray.
How gloriously her gallant course she goes!
Her white wings flying never
from her foes
She
walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
Who would not brave the battlefire,
the wreck,
To move the monarch of her peopled deck?
IV.
Hoarse o'er her side the rustling cable rings;
The sails are furl'd; and anchoring round she swings;

And gathering loiterers on the land discern
Her boat descending from the latticed stem.
'Tis mann'dthe
oars keep concert to the strand,
Till grates her keel upon the shallow sand.
Hail to the welcome shout! the
friendly speech!
When hand grasps hand uniting on the beach;
The smile, the question, and the quick reply,
And the heart's promise of festivity!


V.
The tidings spread, and gathering grows the crowd;
The hum of voices, and the laughter loud,
And woman's gentler anxious tone is heard Friends',
husbands', lovers' names in each dear word:
'Oh! are they safe? we ask not of success But
shall we see them? will their accents bless?
From where the battle roars, the billows chafe
They doubtless boldly did but
who are safe?
Here let them haste to gladden and surprise,
And kiss the doubt from these delighted eyes!'
VI.
'Where is our chief? for him we bear report And
doubt that joy which
hails our coming short;
Yet thus sincere, 'tis cheering, though so brief;
But, Juan! instant guide us to our chief:
Our greeting paid, we'll feast on our return,
And all shall hear what each may wish to learn.'
Ascending slowly by the rockhewn
way,
To where his watchtower
beetles o'er the bay,
By bushy brake, and wild flowers blossoming,
And freshness breathing from each silver spring,
Whose scatter'd streams from granite basins burst,
Leap into life, and sparkling woo your thirst;
From crag to cliff they mount Near
yonder cave,
What lonely straggler looks along the wave?
In pensive posture leaning on the brand,
Not oft a restingstaff
to that red hand?
'Tis he 'tis Conrad here,
as wont, alone;
On Juan!
on
and
make our purpose known.
The bark he views and
tell him we would greet
His ear with tidings he must quickly meet:
We dare not yet approachthou
know'st his mood
When strange or uninvited steps intrude.'
VII.
Him Juan sought, and told of their intent;
He
spake not, but a sign express'd assent.
These Juan calls they
come to
their salute
He bends him slightly, but his lips are mute.
'These letters, Chief, are from the Greek the
spy,
Who still proclaims our spoil or peril nigh:

Whate'er his tidings, we can well report,
Much that' '
Peace, peace! ' he
cuts their prating short.
Wondering they turn, abash'd, while each to each
Conjecture whispers in his muttering speech:
They watch his glance with many a stealing look
To gather how that eye the tidings took;
But, this as if he guess'd, with head aside,
Perchance from some emotion, doubt, or pride,
He read the scroll '
My tablets, Juan' hark Where
is Gonsalvo?'
'In the anchor'd bark'
'There let him stay to
him this order bear Back
to your duty for
my course prepare:
Myself this enterprise tonight
will share.'


'Tonight,
Lord Conrad!'
'Ay! at set of sun:
The breeze will freshen when the day is done.
My corslet, cloak one
hour and we are gone.
Sling on thy bugle see
that free from rust
My carbinelock
springs worthy of my trust.
Be the edge sharpen'd of my boardingbrand,
And give its guard more room to fit my hand.
This let the armourer with speed dispose
Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes:
Mark that the signalgun
be duly fired,
To tell us when the hour of stay's expired.'


VIII.
They make obeisance, and retire in haste,
Too soon to seek again the watery waste:
Yet they repine not so
that Conrad guides;
And who dare question aught that he decides?
That man of loneliness and mystery
Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh;
Whose name appals the fiercest of his crew,
And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower hue;
Still sways their souls with that commanding art
That dazzles, leads, yet chills the vulgar heart.
What is that spell, that thus his lawless train
Confess and envy, yet oppose in vain?
What should it be, that thus their faith can bind?
The power of Thought the
magic of the Mind!
Link'd with success, assumed and kept with skill,
That moulds another's weakness to its will;
Wields with their hands, but, still to these unknown,
Makes even their mightiest deeds appear his own
Such hath it been shall be beneath
the sun
The many still must labour for the one!
'Tis Nature's doom but
let the wretch who toils
Accuse not, hate not him who wears the spoils.
Oh! if he knew the weight of splendid chains,

How light the balance of his humbler pains!

IX.
Unlike the heroes of each ancient race,
Demons in act, but Gods at least in face,
In Conrad's form seems little to admire,
Though his dark eyebrow shades a glance of fire:
Robust but not Herculean to
the sight
No giant frame sets forth his common height;
Yet, in the whole, who paused to look again,
Saw more than marks the crowd of vulgar men;
They gaze and marvel how and
still confess
That thus it is, but why they cannot guess.
Sunbumt
his cheek, his forehead high and pale
The sable curls in wild profusion veil;
And oft perforce his rising lip reveals
The haughtier thought it curbs, but scarce conceals
Though smooth his voice, and calm his general mien'
Still seems there something he would not have seen
His features' deepening lines and varying hue
At times attracted, yet perplex'd the view,
As if within that murkiness of mind
Work'd feelings fearful, and yet undefined
Such might it be that
none could truly tell Too
close inquiry his stern glance would quell.
There breathe but few whose aspect might defy
The full encounter of his searching eye;
He had the skill, when Cunning's gaze would seek
To probe his heart and watch his changing cheek
At once the observer's purpose to espy,
And on himself roll back his scrutiny,
Lest he to Conrad rather should betray
Some secret thought, than drag that chief's to day.
There was a laughing Devil in his sneer,
That raised emotions both of rage and fear;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled, and Mercy sigh'd farewell!
X.
Slight are the outward signs of evil thought,
Withinwithin'
twas there the spirit wrought!
Love shows all changes
Hate,
Ambition, Guile,
Betray no further than the bitter smile;
The lip's least curl, the lightest paleness thrown
Along the govern'd aspect, speak alone
Of deeper passions; and to judge their mien,
He, who would see, must be himself unseen.
Thenwith
the hurried tread, the upward eye,
The clenched hand, the pause of agony,
That listens, starting, lest the step too near
Approach intrusive on that mood of fear;
Thenwith
each feature working from the heart,

With feelings, loosed to strengthennot
depart,
That rise, convulse, contendthat
freeze, or glow
Flush in the' cheek, or damp upon the brow;
Then, Stranger! if thou canst, and tremblest not
Behold his soulthe
rest that soothes his lot!
Mark how that lone and blighted bosom sears
The scathing thought of execrated years!
Beholdbut
who hath seen, or e'er shall see,
Man as himselfthe
secret spirit free?

XI.
Yet was not Conrad thus by Nature sent
To lead the guiltyguilt's
worse instrument
His
soul was changed, before his deeds had driven
Him forth to war with man and forfeit heaven
Warp'd by the world in Disappointment's school,
In words too wise, in conduct there a fool;
Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop,
Doom'd by his very virtues for a dupe,
He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill,
And not the traitors who betray'd him still;
Nor deem'd that gifts bestow'd on better men
Had left him joy, and means to give again
Fear'd, shunn'd, belied, ere youth had lost her force,
He hated man too much to feel remorse,
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call,
To pay the injuries of some on all.
He knew himself a villainbut
he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd
And scorn'd'the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt;
His name could sadden, and his acts surprise;
But they that fear'd him dared not to despise;
Man spurns the worm, but pauses ere he wake
The slumbering venom of the folded snake:
The first may turn, but not avenge the blow;
The last expires, but leaves no living foe;
Fast to the doom'd offender's form it clings,
And he may crushnot
conquerstill
it stings!
XII.
None are all evilquickening
round his heart
One softer feeling would not yet depart
Oft could he sneer at others as beguiled
By passions worthy of a fool or child;
Yet 'gainst that passion vainly still he strove,
And even in him it asks the name of Love!
Yes, it was loveunchangeableunchanged,

Felt but for one from whom he never ranged;
Though fairest captives daily met his eye,
He shunn'd, nor sought, but coldly pass'd them by;
Though many a beauty droop'd in prison'd bower,
None ever sooth'd his most unguarded hour.
Yesit
was Loveif
thoughts of tenderness
Tried in temptation, strengthen'd by distress
Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,
And yetoh
more than all! untired by time;
Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile,
Could render sullen were she near to smile,
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent
On her one murmur of his discontent;
Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part,
Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart;
Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove
If
there be love in mortalsthis
was love!
He was a villainay,
reproaches shower
On himbut
not the passion, nor its power,
Which only proved, all other virtues gone,
Not guilt itself could quench this loveliest one!


XIII.
He paused a momenttill
his hastening men
Pass'd the first winding downward to the glen.
'Strange tidings!many
a peril have I pass'd
Nor know I why this next appears the last!
Yet so my heart forebodes, but must not fear
Nor shall my followers find me falter here.
'Tis rash to meet, but surer death to wait
Till here they hunt us to undoubted fate;
And, if my plan but hold, and Fortune smile,
We'll furnish mourners for our funeral pile.
Ay, let them slumberpeaceful
be their dreams!
Morn ne'er awoke them with such brilliant beams
As kindle high toflight
(but blow, thou breeze!)
To warm these slow avengers of the sea
Now to MedoraOh!
my sinking heart,
Long may her own be lighter than thou art!
Yet was I bravemean
boast where all are brave!
Ev'n insects sting for aught they seek to save.
This common courage which with brutes we share
That owes its' deadliest efforts to despair,
Small merit claimsbut
'twas my nobler hope
To teach my few with numbers still to cope;
Long have I led themnot
to vainly bleed:
No medium nowwe
perish or succeed;
So let it beit
irks not me to die;
But thus to urge them whence they cannot fly.
My lot hath long had little of my care,
But chafes my pride thus baffled in the snare:
Is this my skill? my craft? to set at last

Hope, power, and life upon a single cast?
Oh' Fate!accuse
thy folly, not thy fate!
She may redeem thee still, not yet too late.'


XIV.
Thus with himself communion held he, till
He reach'd the summit of his towercrown'd hill:
There at the portal pausedor
wild and soft
He heard those accents never heard too oft
Through the high lattice far yet sweet they rung,
And these the notes his bird of beauty sung:
1.
'Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,
Lonely and lost to light for evermore,
Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,
Then trembles into silence as before
2.
'There, in its centre' a sepulchral lamp
Burns the slow flame, eternal, but unseen;
Which not the darkness of despair can damp,
Though vain its ray as it had never been.
3.
'Remember me
Oh!
pass not thou my grave
Without one thought whose relics there recline
The only pang my bosom dare not brave
Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.
4.
'My fondest, faintest, latest accents hear
Grief
for the dead not virtue can reprove;
Then give me all I ever ask'da
tear,
The firstlastsole
reward of so much love!'
He pass'd the portal, cross'd the corridor,
And reach'd the chamber as the strain gave o'er:
'My own Medora! sure thy song is sad'
'In Conrad's absence wouldst thou have it glad?
Without thine ear to listen to my lay,
Still must my song my thoughts, my soul betray:
Still must each action to my bosom suit,
My heart unhush'd, although my lips were mute!
Oh! many a night on this lone couch reclined,
My dreaming fear with storms hath wing'd the wind,
And deem'd the breath that faintly fann'd thy sail
The murmuring prelude of the ruder gale;
Though soft, it seem'd the low prophetic dirge,
That mourn'd thee floating on the savage surge;
Still would I rise to rouse the beacon fire,
Lest spies less true should let the blaze expire;



And many a restless hour outwatch'd each star,
And morning cameand
still thou wert afar.
Oh! how the chill blast on my bosom blew,
And day broke dreary on my troubled view,
And still I gazed and gazedand
not a prow
Was granted to my tears, my truth, my vow!
At length 'twas noon
I
hail'd and blest the mast
That met my sightit
near'dAlas!
it pass'd!
Another came
Oh
God! 'twas thine at last!
Would that those days were over! wilt thou ne'er,
My Conrad! learn the joys of peace to share?
Sure thou hast more than wealth, and many a home
As bright as this invites us not to roam:
Thou know'st it is not peril that I fear,
I only tremble when thou art not here;
Then not for mine, but that far dearer life,
Which flies from love and languishes for strife
How
strange that heart, to me so tender still,
Should war with nature and its better will!'


'Yea, strange indeedthat
heart hath long been changed;
Wormlike
'twas trampled, adderlike
avenged,
Without one hope on earth beyond thy love,
And scarce a glimpse of mercy from above.
Yet the same feeling which thou dost condemn,
My very love to thee is hate to them,
So closely mingling here, that disentwined,
I cease to love thee when I love mankind:
Yet dread not this the
proof of all the past
Assures the future that my love will last;
But oh,
Medora! nerve thy gentler heart;
This hour againbut
not for longwe
part.'


'This hour we partmy
heart foreboded this:
Thus ever fade my fairy dreams of bliss.
This hourit
cannot bethis
hour away!
Yon bark hath hardly anchor'd in the bay:
Her consort still is absent, and her crew
Have need of rest before they toil anew:
My love! thou mock'st my weakness; and wouldst steel
My breast before the time when it must feel;
But trifle now no more with my distress,
Such mirth hath less of play than bitterness.
Be silent, Conrad! dearest!
come and share
The feast these hands delighted to prepare;
Light toil! to cull and dress thy frugal fare!
See, I have pluck'd the fruit that promised best,
And where not sure, perplex'd, but pleased, I guess'd
At such as seem'd the fairest; thrice the hill
My steps have wound to try the coolest rill;
Yes! thy sherbet tonight will sweetly flow,
See how it sparkles in its vase of snow!



The grapes' gay juice thy bosom never cheers;
Thou more than Moslem when the cup appears:
Think not I mean to chidefor
I rejoice
What others deem a penance is thy choice.
But come, the board is spread; our silver lamp
Is trimm'd, and heeds not the sirocco's damp:
Then shall my handmaids while the time along,
And join with me the dance, or wake the song;
Or my guitar, which still thou lov'st to hear'
Shall soothe or lullor,
should it vex thine ear
We'll turn the' tale, by Ariosto told,
Of fair Olympia loved and left of old.
Why, thou wert worse than he who broke his vow
To that lost damsel, shouldst thou leave me now;
Or even that traitor chief
I've
seen thee smile,
When the dear sky show'd Ariadne's Isle,
Which I have pointed from these cliffs the while:
And thus half sportive, half in fear, I said,
Lest time should rake that doubt to more than dread,
Thus Conrad, too, win quit me for the main;
And he deceived mefor
he came again!'


'Again, againand
oft againmy
love!
If there be life below, and hope above,
He will returnbut
now, the moments bring
The time of parting with redoubled wing:
The why, the where what
boots it now to tell?
Since all must end in that wild word farewell!
Yet would I faindid
time allow disclose
Fear
notthese
are no formidable foes
And here shall watch a more than wonted guard,
For sudden siege and long defence prepared:
Nor be thou lonely, though thy lord 's away,
Our matrons and thy handmaids with thee stay;
And this thy comfortthat,
when next we meet,
Security shall make repose more sweet.
List!'
tis the bugle! 'Juan
shrilly blew'
One kissone
moreanother
Oh!
Adieu!'


She roseshe
sprungshe
clung to his embrace,
Till his heart heaved beneath her hidden face:
He dared not raise to his that deepblue
eye,
Which downcast droop'd in tearless agony.
Her long fair hair lay floating o'er his arms,
In all the wildness of dishevell'd charms;
Scarce beat that bosom where his image dwelt
So fullthat
feeling seem'd almost Unfelt!
Harkpeals
the thunder of the signalgun
It told 'twas sunset, and he cursed that sun.
Againagainthat
form he madly press'd,
Which mutely clasp'd, imploringly caress'd!
And tottering to the couch his bride he bore,



One moment gazed, as if to gaze no more;
Felt that for him earth held but her alone,
Kiss'd her cold foreheadturn'dis
Conrad gone?


XV.
'And is he gone?' on sudden solitude
How oft that fearful question will intrude
'Twas but an instant past, and here he stood!
And now 'without
the portal's porch she rush'd,
And then at length her tears in freedom gush'd;
Big, bright, and fast, unknown to her they fell;
But still her lips refused to send'
Farewell!'
For in that wordthat
fatal wordhowe'er
We promise, hope, believe, there breathes despair.
O'er every feature of that still, pale face,
Had sorrow fix'd what time can ne'er erase:
The tender blue of that large loving eye
Grew frozen with its gaze on vacancy,
TillOh?
how far!it
caught a glimpse of him,
And then it flow'd, and phrensied seem'd to swim
Through those' long, dark, and glistening lashes dew'd
With drops of sadness oft to be renew'd.
'He's gone! 'against
her heart that hand is driven,
Convulsed and quickthen
gently raised to heaven:
She look'd and saw the heaving of the main;
The white sail set she dared not look again;
But turn'd with sickening soul within the gate
'It is no dream and
I am desolate!'
XVI.
From crag to crag descending, swiftly sped
Stern Conrad down, nor once he turn'd his head;
But shrunk whene'er the windings of his way
Forced on his eye what he would not survey,
His lone but lovely dwelling on the steep,
That hail'd him first when homeward from the deep
And shethe
dim and melancholy star,
Whose ray of beauty reach'd him from afar
On her he must not gaze, he must not think,
There he might restbut
on Destruction's brink:
Yet once almost he stopp'd, and nearly gave
His fate to chance, his projects to the wave:
But noit
must not bea
worthy chief
May melt, but not betray to woman's grief.
He sees his bark, he notes how fair the wind,
And sternly gathers all his might of mind:
Again he hurries onand
as he hears
The dang of tumult vibrate on his ears,
The busy sounds, the bustle of the shore,
The shout, the signal, and the dashing oar;
As marks his eye the seaboy on the mast,
The anchors rise, the sails unfurling fast,

The waving kerchiefs of the crowd that urge
That mute adieu to those who stem the surge;
And more than all, his bloodred
flag aloft,
He marvell'd how his heart could seem so soft.
Fire in his glance, and wildness in his breast
He feels of all his former self possest;
He bounds he
fliesuntil
his footsteps reach
The verge where ends the cliff, begins the beach,
There checks his speed; but pauses less to breathe
The breezy freshness of the deep beneath,
Than there his wonted statelier step renew;
Nor rush, disturb'd by haste, to vulgar view:
For well had Conrad learn'd to curb the crowd,
By arts that veil and oft preserve the proud;
His was the lofty port, the distant mien,
That seems to shun the sightand
awes if seen:
The solemn aspect, and the highborn
eye,
That checks low mirth, but lacks not courtesy;
All these he wielded to command assent:
But where he wish'd to win, so well unbent
That kindness cancell'd fear in those who heard,
And others' gifts show'd mean beside his word,
When echo'd to the heart as from his own
His deep yet tender melody of tone:
But such was foreign to his wonted mood,
He cared not what he soften'd, but subdued:
The evil passions of his youth had made
Him value less who lovedthan
what obey'd.


XVII.
Around him mustering ranged his ready guard,
Before him Juan stands '
Are all prepared?'
They are nay
more embark'd:
the boats
Waits but my Chief'
My sword, and my capote.'
Soon firmly girded on, and lightly slung,
His belt and cloak were o'er his shoulders flung:
'Call Pedro here!' He comes and
Conrad bends,
With all the courtesy he deign'd his friends;
'Receive these tablets, and peruse with care,
Words of high trust and truth are graven there;
Double the guard, and when Anselmo's bark
Arrives, let him alike these orders mark:
In three days (serve the breeze) the sun shall shine
On our return till
then all peace be thine!'
This said, his brother Pirate's hand he wrung,
Then to his boat with haughty gesture sprung.
Flash'd the dipt oars, and sparkling with the stroke,
Around the waves' phosphoric brightness broke;
They gain the vessel on
the deck he stands, Shrieks
the shrill whistle, ply the busy hands He
marks how well the ship her helm obeys,

How gallant all her crew, and deigns to praise.
His eyes of pride to young Gonsalvo turn Why
doth he start, and inly seem to mourn?
Alas! those eyes beheld his rocky tower
And live a moment o'er the parting hour;
She his
Medora did
she mark the prow?
Ah! never loved he half so much as now!
But much must yet be done ere dawn of day Again
he mans himself and turns away;
Down to the cabin with Gonsalvo bends,
And there unfolds his plan, his means, and ends;
Before them burns the lamp, and spreads the chart,
And all that speaks and aids the naval art;
They to the midnight watch protract debate;
To anxious eyes what hour is ever late?
Meantime, the steady breeze serenely blew,
And fast and falconlike
the vessel flew;
Pass'd the high headlands of each clustering isle,
To gain their port long
long
ere morning smile:
And soon the nightglass
through the narrow bay
Discovers where the Pacha's galleys lay.
Count they each sail, and mark how there supine
The lights in vain o'er heedless Moslem shine.
Secure, unnoted, Conrad's prow pass'd by,
And anchor'd where his ambush meant to lie;
Screen'd from espial by the jutting cape,
That rears on high its rude fantastic shape.
Then rose his band to duty not
from sleep Equipp'd
for deeds alike on land or deep;
While lean'd their leader o'er the fretting flood,
And calmly talk'dand
yet he talk'd of blood!


CANTO THE SECOND


'Conoscestci dubiosi desiri?' — Dante


I.
IN Coron's bay floats many a galley light,
Through Coron's lattices the lamps are bright
For Seyd, the Pacha, makes a feast tonight:
A feast for promised triumph yet to come,
When he shall drag the fetter'd Rovers home;
This hath he sworn by Allah and his sword,
And faithful to his firman and his word,
His summon'd prows collect along the coast,
And great the gathering crews, and loud the boast;
Already shared the captives and the prize,
Though far the distant foe they thus despise
'Tis but to sail no
doubt tomorrow's
Sun
Will see the Pirates bound, their haven won!
Meantime the watch may slumber, if they will,

Nor only wake to war, but dreaming kill.
Though all, who can, disperse on shore and seek
To flesh their glowing valour on the Greek;
How well such deed becomes the turban'd brave To
bare the sabre's edge before a slave!
Infest his dwelling but
forbear to slay,
Their arms are strong, yet merciful today,
And do not deign to smite because they may!
Unless some gay caprice suggests the blow,
To keep in practice for the coming foe.
Revel and rout the evening hours beguile,
And they who wish to wear a head must smile
For Moslem mouths produce their choicest cheer,
And hoard their curses, till the coast is clear.


II.
High in his hall reclines the turban'd Seyd;
Aroundthe
bearded chiefs he came to lead.
Removed the banquet, and the last pilaff Forbidden
draughts, 'tis said, he dared to quaff,
Though to the rest the sober berry's juice
The slaves bear round for rigid Moslems' use;
The long chibouque's dissolving cloud supply,
While dance the Almas to wild minstrelsy.
The rising morn will view the chiefs embark;
But waves are somewhat treacherous in the dark:
And revellers may more securely sleep
On silken couch than o'er the rugged deep:
Feast there who can nor
combat till they must,
And less to conquest than to Korans trust:
And yet the numbers crowded in his host
Might warrant more than even the Pacha's boast.
III.
With cautious reverence from the outer gate
Slow stalks the slave, whose office there to wait,
Bows his bent head, his hand salutes the floor,
Ere yet his tongue the trusted tidings bore:
'A captive Dervise, from the Pirate's nest
Escaped, is here himself
would tell the rest.'
He took the sign from Seyd's assenting eye,
And led the holy man in silence nigh.
His arms were folded on his darkgreen
vest,
His step was feeble, and his look deprest;
Yet worn he seem'd of hardship more than years,
And pale his cheek with penance, not from fears.
Vow'd to his God his
sable locks he wore,
And these his lofty cap rose proudly o'er:
Around his form his loose long robe was thrown
And wrapt 'a breast bestow'd on heaven alone;
Submissive, yet with selfpossession
mann'd,
He calmly, met the curious eyes that scann d;

And question of his coming fain would seek,
Before the Pacha's will allow'd to speak.

IV.
Whence com'st thou, Dervise?'
'From the outlaw's den,
A fugitive '
'Thy capture where and when?'
From Scalanova's port to Scio's isle,
The Saick was bound; but Allah did not smile
Upon our course the
Moslem merchant's gains
The Rovers won; our limbs have worn their chains.
I had no death to fear, nor wealth to boast
Beyond the wandering freedom which I lost;
At length a fisher's humble boat by night
Afforded hope, and offer'd chance of flight;
I seized the hour, and find my safety here With
thee most
mighty Pacha! who can fear?'
'How speed the outlaws? stand they well prepared,
Their plunder'd wealth, and robber's rock, to guard?
Dream they of this our preparation, doom'd
To view with fire their scorpion nest consumed?'


'Pacha! the fetter'd captive's mourning eye,
That weeps for flight, but ill can play the spy;
I only heard the reckless waters roar
Those waves that would not bear me from the shore;
I only mark'd the glorious sun and sky,
Too bright, too blue, or my captivity;
And felt that all which Freedom's bosom cheers
Must break my chain before it dried my tears.
This may'st thou judge, at least, from my escape,
They little deem of aught in peril's shape;
Else vainly had I pray'd or sought the chance
That leads me here if
eyed with vigilance
The careless guard that did not see me fly
May watch as idly when thy power is nigh.
Pacha! my limbs are faint and
nature craves
Food for my hunger, rest from tossing waves:
Permit my absence peace
be with thee! Peace
With all around! now
grant repose release.'


'Stay, Dervise! I have more to question stay,
I do command thee sit
dost
hear? obey!
More I must ask, and food the slaves shall bring
Thou shalt not pine where all are banqueting:
The supper done prepare
thee to reply,
Clearly and full I
love not mystery.'
'Twere vain to guess what shook the pious man,
Who look'd not lovingly on that Divan;
Nor show'd high relish for the banquet prest,



And less respect for every fellow guest.
'Twas but a moment's peevish hectic pass'd
Along his cheek, and tranquillised as fast:
He sate him down in silence, and his look
Resumed the calmness which before forsook:
This feast was usher'd in, but sumptuous fare
He shunn'd as if some poison mingled there.
For one so long condemn'd to toil and fast,
Methinks he strangely spares the rich repast.


'What ails thee, Dervise? eat dost
thou suppose
This feast a Christian's? or my friends thy foes?
Why dost thou shun the salt? that sacred pledge,
Which once partaken, blunts the sabre's edge,
Makes ev'n contending tribes in peace unite,
And hated hosts seem brethren to the sight!'


'Salt seasons daintiesand
my food is still
The humblest root, my drink the simplest rill;
And my stern vow and order's laws oppose
To break or mingle bread with friends or foes;
It may seem strange if
there be aught to dread,
That peril rests upon my single head;
But for thy sway nay
more thy
Sultan's throne,
I taste nor bread nor banquet save
alone;
Infringed our order's rule, the Prophet's rage
To Mecca's dome might bar my pilgrimage.'


'Well as
thou wilt ascetic
as thou art One
question answer; then in peace depart.
How many ? Ha!
it cannot sure be day?
What star what
sun is bursting on the bay?
It shines a lake of fire ! away
away!
Ho! treachery! my guards! my scimitar!
The galleys feed the flames and
I afar!
Accursed Dervise! these
thy tidings thou
Some villain spyseize
cleave him slay
him now!'


Up rose the Dervise with that burst of light,
Nor less his change of form appall'd the sight:
Up rose that Dervise not
in saintly garb,
But like a warrior bounding on his barb,
Dash'd his high cap, and tore his robe away Shone
his mail'd breast, and flash'd his sabre's ray!
His dose but glittering casque, and sable plume,
More glittering eye, and black brow's sabler gloom,
Glared on the Moslems' eyes some Afrit sprite,
Whose demon deathblow
left no hope for fight.
The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow
Of flames on high, and torches from below;
The shriek of terror, and the mingling yell For
swords began to dash' and shouts to swell



Flung o'er that spot of earth the air of hell!
Distracted, to and fro, the flying slaves
Behold but bloody shore and fiery waves;
Nought heeded they the Pacha's angry cry,
They seize that Dervise!seize
on Zatanai!
He saw their terrorcheck'd
the first dispair
That urged him but to stand and perish there,
Since far too early and too well obey'd,
The flame was kindled ere the signal made;
He saw their terror from
his baldric drew
His
buglebrief
the blastbut
shrilly blew;
'Tis answered'
Well ye speed, my gallant crew!
Why did I doubt their quickness of career?
And deem design had left me single here?'
Sweeps his long armthat
sabre's whirling sway
Sheds fast atonement for its first delay;
Completes his fury what their fear begun,
And makes the many basely quail to one.
The cloven turbans o'er the chamber spread,
And scarce an arm dare rise to guard its head:
Even Seyd, convulsed, o'erwhelm'd, with rage surprise,
Retreats before him, though he still defies.
No craven he and
yet he dreads the blow,
So much Confusion magnifies his foe!
His blazing galleys still distract his sight,
He tore his beard, and foaming fled the fight;
For now the pirates pass'd the Haram gate,
And burst within and
it were death to wait
Where wild Amazement shrieking kneeling
throws
The sword aside in
vain the blood o'erflows!
The Corsairs pouring, haste to where within
Invited Conrad's bugle, and the din
Of groaning victims, and wild cries for life,
Proclaim'd how well he did the work of strife.
They shout to find him grim and lonely there,
A glutted tiger mangling in his lair!
But short their greeting, shorter his reply
'Tis well but Seyd escapes, and he must die
Much
hath been done, but more remains to do Their
galleys blaze why
not their city too?'


V.
Quick at the word they seized him each a torch'
And fire the dome from minaret to porch.
A stern delight was fix'd in Conrad's eye,
But sudden sunk for
on his ear the cry
Of women struck, and like a deadly knell
Knock'd at that heart unmoved by battle's yell.
'Oh! burst the Haram wrong
not on your lives
One female form remember we
have wives.
On them such outrage Vengeance will repay;
Man is our foe, and such 'tis ours to slay:

But still we spared must
spare the weaker prey.
Oh! I forgot but
Heaven will not forgive
If at my word the helpless cease to live;
Follow who will I
go we
yet have time
Our souls to lighten of at least a crime.'
He climbs the crackling stair, he bursts the door,
Nor feels his feet glow scorching with the floor;
His breath choked gasping with the volumed smoke,
But still from room to room his way he broke.
They search they
find they
save: with lusty arms
Each bears a prize of unregarded charms;
Calm their loud fears; sustain their sinking frames
With all the care defenceless beauty claims
So well could Conrad tame their fiercest mood,
And check the very hands with gore imbrued.
But who is she? whom Conrad's arms convey
From reeking pile and combat's wreck away Who
but the love of him he dooms to bleed?
The Haram queen but
still the slave of Seyd!


VI.
Brief time had Conrad now to greet Gulnare,
Few words to reassure
the trembling fair
For in that pause compassion snatch'd from war,
The foe before retiring, fast and far,
With wonder saw their footsteps unpursued,
First slowlier fled then
rallied then
withstood.
This Seyd perceives, then first perceives how few?
Compared with his, the Corsair's roving crew,
And blushes o'er his error, as he eyes
The ruin wrought by panic and surprise.
Alla il Alla! Vengeance swells the cry Shame
mounts to rage that must atone or die!
And flame for flame and blood for blood must tell,
The tide of triumph ebbs that flow'd too well When
wrath returns to renovated strife,
And those who fought for conquest strike for life
Conrad beheld the danger he
beheld
His followers faint by freshening foes repell'd:
'One effort one
to
break the circling host!'
They form unite
charge
waver
all
is lost!
Within a narrower ring compress'd, beset,
Hopeless, not heartless, strive and struggle yet Ah!
now they fight in firmest file no more,
Hemm'd in, cut off, cleft down, and trampled o'er,
But each strikes singly, silently, and home,
And sinks outwearied rather than o'ercome,
His last faint quittance rendering with his breath,
Till the blade glimmers in the grasp of death!
VII.
But first, ere came the rallying host to blows,

And rank to rank, and hand to hand oppose,
Gulnare and all her Haram handmaids freed,
Safe in the dome of one who held their creed,
By Conrad's mandate safely were bestow'd
And dried those tears for life and fame that flow'd:
And when that darkeyed
lady, young Gulnare
Recall'd those thoughts late wandering in despair
Much did she marvel o'er the courtesy
That smooth'd his accents, soften'd in his eye:
'Twas strangethat
robber thus with gore bedew'd
Seem'd gentler then than Seyd in fondest mood.
The Pacha woo'd as if he deem'd the slave
Must seem delighted with the heart he gave
The Corsair vow'd protection, soothed affright
As if his homage were a woman's right.
'The wish is wrongnay,
worse for female vain:
Yet much I long to view that chief again;
If but to thank for, what my fear forget,
The life my loving lord remember'd not!'


VIII.
And him she saw, where thickest carnage spread,
But gather'd breathing from the happier dead;
Far from his band, and battling with a host
That deem right dearly won the field he lost,
Fell'd bleeding
baffled
of the death he sought,
And snatch'd to expiate all the ills he wrought;
Preserved to linger and to live in vain,
While Vengeance ponder'd o'er new plans of pain,
And stanch'd the blood she saves to shed again But
drop for drop, for Seyd's unglutted eye
Would doom him ever dying ne'er
to die!
Can this be he? triumphant late she saw
When his red hand's wild gesture waved a law!
'Tis he indeed disarm'd
but undeprest,
His sole regret the life he still possest;
His wounds too slight, though taken with that will,
Which would have kiss'd the hand that then could kill.
Oh were there none, of all the many given,
To send his soul he
scarcely ask'd to heaven?
Must he alone of all retain his breath,
Who more than all had striven and struck for death?
He deeply felt what
mortal hearts must feel,
When thus reversed on faithless fortune's wheel,
For crimes committed, and the victor's threat
Of lingering tortures to repay the debt He
deeply, darkly felt; but evil pride
That led to perpetrate, now serves to hide.
Still in his stern and selfcollected
mien
A conqueror's more than captive's air is seen
Though faint with wasting toil and stiffening wound,
But few that saw so
calmly gazed around:

Though the far shouting of the distant crowd,
Their tremors o'er, rose insolently loud,
The better warriors who beheld him near,
Insulted not the foe who taught them fear;
And the grim guards that to his durance led,
In silence eyed him with a secret dread


IX.
The Leech was sentbut
not in mercy there,
To note how much the life yet left could bear;
He found enough to load with heaviest chain,
And promise feeling for the wrench of pain;
Tomorrow
yea
tomorrow's
evening gun
Will sinking see impalement's pangs begun'
And rising with the wonted blush of morn
Behold how well or ill those pangs are borne.
Of torments this the longest and the worst,
Which adds all other agony to thirst,
That day by day death still forbears to slake,
While famish'd vultures flit around the stake.
'Oh! Water water!
' smiling Hate denies
The victim's prayer, for if he drinks he dies.
This was his doom; the
Leech, the guard were gone,
And left proud Conrad fetter'd and alone.
X.
'Twere vain to paint to what his feelings grew It
even were doubtful if their victim knew.
There is a war, a chaos of the mind,
When all its elements convulsed, combined,
Lie dark and jarring with perturbed force,
And gnashing with impenitent Remorse That
juggling fiend, who never spake before
But cries 'I warn'd thee!' when the deed is o'er.
Vain voice! the spirit burning but unbent
May writhe, rebel the
weak alone repent!
Even in that lonely hour when most it feels,
And, to itself; all, all that self reveals,
No
single passion, and no ruling thought
That leaves the rest, as once, unseen, unsought,
But the wild prospect when the soul reviews,
All rushing through their thousand avenues Ambition's
dreams expiring, love's regret,
Endanger'd glory, life itself beset;
The joy untasted, the contempt or hate
'Gainst those who fain would triumph in our fate
The hopeless' past, the hasting future driven
Too quickly on to guess of hell or heaven;
Deeds, thoughts, and words, perhaps remember'd not
So keenly till that hour, but ne'er forgot;
Things light or lovely in their acted time,
But now to stern reflection each a crime;

The withering sense of evil unreveal'd,
Not cankering less because the more con ceal'd All,
in a word, from which all eyes must start,
That opening sepulchre the
naked heart
Bares with its buried woes, till Pride awake,
To snatch the mirror from the souland
break.
Ay, Pride can veil, and Courage brave it all All
all
before
beyond
the
deadliest fall.
Each hath some fear, and he who least betrays,
The only hypocrite deserving praise:
Not the loud recreant wretch who boasts and flies;
But he who looks on deathand
silent dies.
So steel'd by pondering o'er his far career,
He halfway
meets him should he menace near!


XI.
In the high chamber of his highest tower
Sate Conrad, fetter'd in the Pacha's power.
His palace perish'd in the flame this
fort
Contain'd at once his captive and his court.
Not much could Conrad of his sentence blame,
His foe, if vanquish'd, had but shared the same:
Alone
he satein
solitude had scann'd
His guilty bosom, but that breast he mann'd:
One thought alone he could not dared
not meet '
Oh, how these tidings will Medora greet?'
Then only
then his
clanking hands he raised,
And strain'd with rage the chain on which he gazed
But soon he found, or feign'd, or dream'd relief,
And smiled in selfderision
of his grief,
'And now come torture when it will or
may,
More need of rest to nerve me for the day!'
This said, with languor to his mat he crept,
And, whatsoe'er his visions, quickly slept
'Twas hardly midnight when that fray begun,
For Conrad's plans matured, at once were done:
And Havoc loathes so much the waste of time,
She scarce had left an uncommitted crime.
One hour beheld him since the tide he stemm'd Disguised,
discover'd, conquering, ta'en, condemn'd A
chief on land, an outlaw on the deep
Destroying, saving, prison'd, and asleep!


XII.
He slept in calmest seeming, for his breath
Was hush'd so deep Ah!
happy if in death!
He slept Who
o'er his placid slumber bends?
His foes are gone, and here he hath no friends;
Is it some seraph sent to grant him grace?
No, 'tis an earthly form with heavenly face!
Its white arm raised a lamp yet
gently hid,

Lest the ray flash abruptly on the lid
Of that closed eye, which opens but to pain,
And once unclosed but
once may close again
That form, with eye so dark, and cheek so fair,
And auburn waves of gemm'd and braided hair;
With shape of fairy lightness naked
foot,
That shines like snow, and falls on earth as mute Through
guards and dunnest night how came it there?
Ah! rather ask what will not woman dare?
Whom youth and pity lead like thee, Gulnare!
She could not sleep and
while the Pacha's rest
In muttering dreams yet saw his pirateguest
She left his side his
signetring
she bore
Which oft in sport adorn'd her hand before And
with it, scarcely question'd, won her way
Through drowsy guards that must that sign obey.
Worn out with toil, and tired with changing blows
Their eyes had' envied Conrad his repose;
And chill and nodding at the turret door,
They stretch their listless limbs, and watch no more;
Just raised their heads to hail the signetring,
Nor ask or what or who the sign may bring.


XIII.
She gazed in wonder, 'Can he calmly sleep,
While other eyes his fall or ravage weep?
And mine in restlessness are wandering here What
sudden spell hath made this man so dear?
True'
tis to him my life, and more, I owe,
And me and mine he spared from worse than woe:
'Tis late to think but
soft, his slumber breaks How
heavily he sighs! he
starts awakes!'
He raised his head, and dazzled with the light,
His eye seem'd dubious if it saw aright:
He moved his hand the
grating of his chain
Too harshly told him that he lived again.
'What is that form? if not a shape of air,
Methinks, my jailor's face shows wondrous fair!'
'Pirate! thou know'st me notbut
I am one,
Grateful for deeds thou hast too rarely done;
Look on me and
remember her, thy hand
Snatch'd from the flames, and thy more fearful band.
I come through darkness and I scarce know why Yet
not to hurt I
would not see thee die'
'If so, kind lady! thine the only eye
That would not here in that gay hope delight:
Theirs is the chance and
let them use their right.
But still I thank their courtesy or thine,
That would confess me at so fair a shrine!'


Strange though it seem yet
with extremest grief



Is link'd a mirth it
doth not bring relief That
playfulness of Sorrow ne'er beguiles,
And smiles in bitterness but
still it smiles;
And sometimes with the wisest and the best,
Till even the scaffold echoes with their jest!
Yet not the joy to which it seems akin It
may deceive all hearts, save that within.
Whate'er it was that flash'd on Conrad, now
A laughing wildness half unbent his brow
And these his accents had a sound of mirth,
As if the last he could enjoy on earth;
Yet 'gainst his nature for
through that short life,
Few thoughts had he to spare from gloom and strife.


XIV.
'Corsair! thy doom is named but
I have power
To soothe the Pacha in his weaker hour.
Thee would I spare nay
more would
save thee now,
But this time
hope
nor
even thy strength allow;
But all I can, I will: at least, delay
The sentence that remits thee scarce a day.
More now were ruin even
thyself were loth
The vain attempt should bring but doom to both.'
'Yes! loth indeed:my
soul is nerved to all,
Or fall'n too low to fear a further fall:
Tempt not thyself with peril me
with hope
Of flight from foes with whom I could not cope:
Unfit to vanquish, shall I meanly fly,
The one of all my band that would not die?
Yet there is one to whom my memory clings,
Till to these eyes her own wild softness springs.
My sole resources in the path I trod
Were these my
bark, my sword, my love, my God!
The last I left in youth! he
leaves me now And
Man but works his will to lay me low.
I have no thought to mock his throne with prayer
Wrung from the coward crouching of despair;
It is enough I
breathe, and I can bear.
My sword is shaken from the worthless hand
That might have better kept so true a brand;
My bark is sunk or captive but
my love For
her in sooth my voice would mount above:
Oh! she is all that still to earth can bind And
this will break a heart so more than kind,
And blight a form till
thine appear'd, Gulnare!
Mine eye ne'er ask'd if others were as fair.'


'Thou lov'st another then? but
what to me
Is this '
tis nothing nothing
e'er can be:
But yet thou
lov'st and
Oh!
I envy those
Whose hearts on hearts as faithful can repose,



Who never feel the voidthe
wandering thought
That sighs o'er vision—such as mine hath wrought.'


'Lady methought thy love was his, for whom
This arm redeem'd thee from a fiery tomb.


'My love stern Seyd's! Oh No
No
not
my love Yet
much this heart, that strives no more, once strove
To meet his passion but it would not be.
I felt I
feel love
dwells with with
the free.
I am a slave, a favour'd slave at best,
To share his splendour, and seem very blest!
Oft must my soul the question undergo,
Of '
Dost thou love?' and burn to answer, 'No!'
Oh! hard it is that fondness to sustain,
And struggle not to feel averse in vain;
But harder still the heart's recoil to bear,
And hide from one perhaps
another there.
He takes the hand I give not, nor withhold Its
pulse nor check'd, nor quicken'dcalmly
cold:
And when resign'd, it drops a lifeless weight
From one I never loved enough to hate.
No warmth these lips return by his imprest,
And chill'd remembrance shudders o'er the rest.
Yes had
lever proved that passion's zeal,
The change to hatred were at least to feel:
But still he goes unmourn'd, returns unsought,
And oft when present absent
from my thought.
Or when reflection comes and
come it must I
fear that henceforth 'twill but bring disgust;
I am his slave but,
in despite of pride,
'Twere worse than bondage to become his bride.
Oh! that this dotage of his breast would cease:
Or seek another and give mine release,
But yesterday I
could have said, to peace!
Yes, if unwonted fondness now I feign,
Remember captive! 'tis to break thy chain;
Repay the life that to thy hand I owe
To give thee back to all endear'd below,
Who share such love as I can never know.
Farewell, morn breaks, and I must now away:
'Twill cost me dear but
dread no death today!'


XV.
She press'd his fetter'd fingers to her heart,
And bow'd her head, and turn'd her to de part,
And noiseless as a lovely dream is gone.
And was she here? and is he now alone?
What gem hath dropp'd and sparkles o'er his chain?
The tear most sacred, shed for others' pain,
That starts at once bright
pure
from
Pity's mine
Already polish'd by the hand divine!

Oh! too convincing deangerously
dear In
woman's eye the unanswerable tear
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue at once her spear and shield:
Avoid it Virtue
ebbs and Wisdom errs,
Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers!
What lost a world, and bade a hero fly?
The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye.
Yet be the soft triumvir's fault forgiven;
By this how
many lose not earth but
heaven!
Consign their souls to man's eternal foe,
And seal their own to spare some wanton's woe!


XVI.
'Tis morn, and o'er his alter'd features play
The beams without
the hope of yesterday.
What shall he be ere night? perchance a thing
O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing
By his closed eye unheeded and unfelt;
While sets that sun, and dews of evening melt,
Chin wet, and misty round each stiffen'd limb,
Refreshing earth reviving
all but him!
CANTO THE THIRD

'Come vedi ancor
non m'abbandona' — Dante

I.
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows.
On old Ægina's rock and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf; unconquer'd Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse
More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Tm, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.
On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When Athens!
here thy Wisest look'd his last.
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!
Not yet not
yet Sol
pauses on the hill



The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes:
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land, where Phoebus never frown'd before;
But ere he sank below Cithæron's head,
The cup of woe was quaff'd the
spirit fled
The soul of him who scorn'd to fear or fly Who
lived and died, as none can live or die!


But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The queen of night asserts her silent reign.
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form:
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams
play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And, bright around with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm,
All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye And
dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.


Again the Ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long array of sapphire and of gold,
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown where
gentler ocean seems to smile.


II.
Not now my themewhy
turn my thoughts to thee?
Oh! who can look along thy native sea.
Nor dwell upon thy name, whate'er the tale
So much its magic must o'er all prevail?
Who that beheld that Sun upon thee set,
Fair Athens! could thine evening face for get?
Not he whose
heart nor time nor distance frees,
Spellbound
within the clustering Cyclades!
Nor seems this homage foreign to its strain,
His Corsair's isle was once thine own domain Would
that with freedom it were thine again!
III.
The Sun hath sunk and,
darker than the night,
Sinks with its beam upon the beacon height
Medora's heart the
third day's come and gone With
it he comes not sends
not faithless
one!

The wind was fair though light; and storms were none. 70
Last eve Anselmo's bark return'd, and yet
His only tidings that they had not met!
Though wild, as now, far different were the tale
Had Conrad waited for that single sail.
The nightbreeze
freshens she
that day had pass'd
In watching all that Hope proclaim'd a mast;
Sadly she sate on high Impatience
bore
At last her footsteps to the midnight shore,
And there she wander'd, heedless of the spray
That dash'd her garments oft, and warn'd away:
She saw not, felt not this nor
dared depart,
Nor deem'd it cold her
chill was at her heart;
Till grew such certainty from that suspense
His very sight had shock'd from life or sense!


It came at last a
sad and shatter'd boat,
Whose inmates first beheld whom first they sought;
Some bleeding all
most wretched these
the few Scarce
knew they how escaped this
all they knew.
In silence, darkling, each appear'd to wait
His fellow's mournful guess at Conrad's fate:
Something they would have said; but seem'd to fear
To trust their accents to Medora's ear.
She saw at once, yet sunk not trembled
not Beneath
that grief, that loneliness of lot;
Within that meek fair form were feelings high,
That deem'd not, till they found, their energy
While yet was Hope they soften'd, flutter'd wept All
lost that
softness died not but
it slept;
And o'er its slumber rose that Strength which said,
'With nothing left to love, there's nought to dread.'
'Tis more than nature's; like the burning 'night
Delirium gathers from the fever's height.


'Silent you stand nor
would I hear you tell
What speak
not breathe
not for
I know it well Yet
would I ask almost
my lip denies
The quick
your answer tell
me where he lies.'


'Lady! we know not scarce
with life we fled
But here is one denies that he is dead:
He saw him bound: and bleeding but
alive.'


She heard no further '
twas in vain to strive So
throbb'd each vein each
thought till
then withstood;
Her own dark soul these
words at once subdued:
She totters falls
and
senseless had the wave
Perchance but snatched her from another grave,
But that with hands though rude, yet weeping eyes,
They yield such aid as Pity's haste supplies:
Dash o'er her deathlike cheek the ocean dew,



Raise, fan, sustaintill
life returns anew;
Awake her handmaids, with the matrons leave
That fainting form o'er which they gaze and grieve;
Then seek Anselmo's cavern, to report
The tale too tedious when
the triumph short.


IV.
In that wild council words wax'd warm and strange
With thoughts of ransom, rescue, and revenge;
All, save repose or flight: still lingering there
Breathed Conrad's spirit, and forbade despair
Whate'er his fate the
breasts he form'd and led
Will save him living, or appease him dead
Woe to his foes! there yet survive a few
Whose deeds are daring, as their hearts are true.
V.
Within the Haram's Secret chamber sate
Stern Seyd, still pondering o'er his Captive's fate;
His thoughts on love and hate alternate dwell,
Now with Gulnare, and now in Conrad's cell;
Here at his feet the lovely slave reclined
Surveys his brow would
soothe his gloom of mind;
While many an anxious glance her large dark eye
Sends in its idle search for sympathy,
His only bends in seeming o'er his beads,
But inly views his victim as he bleeds.
'Pacha! the day is time; and on thy crest
Sits Triumph Conrad
taken fall'n
the rest!
His doom is fix'd he
dies; and well his fate
Was earn'd yet
much too worthless for thy hate:
Methinks, a short release, for ransom told
With all his treasure, not unwisely sold;
Report speaks largely of his piratehoard
Would
that of this my Pacha were the lord!
While baffled, weaken'd by this fatal fray Watch'd
follow'd
he
were then an easier prey;
But once cut off the
remnant of his band
Embark their wealth, and seek a safer strand.'
'Gulnare! if
for each drop of blood a gem
Were offer'd rich as Stamboul's diadem;
If for each hair of his a massy mine
Of virgin ore should supplicating shine;
If all our Arab tales divulge or dream
Of wealth were here that
gold should not redeem!
It had not now redeem'd a single hour,
But that I know him fetter'd, in my power;
And, thirsting for revenge, I ponder still
On pangs that longest rack, and latest kill.'


'Nay, Seyd! I seek not to restrain thy rage,



Too justly moved for mercy to assuage;
My thoughts were only to secure for thee
His riches thus
released, he were not free:
Disabled, shorn of half his might and band,
His capture could but wait thy first command.'
His capture could! shall I then resign
One day to him the
wretch already mine?
Release my foe!at
whose remonstrance? thine!
Fair suitor! to
thy virtuous gratitude,
That thus repays this Giaour's relenting mood,
Which thee and thine alone of all could spare,
No doubt regardless
if the prize were fair,
My thanks and praise alike are due now
hear!
I have a counsel for thy gentler ear:
I do mistrust thee, woman! and each word
Of thine stamps truth on all Suspicion heard.
Borne in his arms through fire from yon Serai Say,
wert thou lingering there with him to fly?
Thou need'st not answer thy
confession speaks
Already reddening on thy guilty cheeks;
Then, lovely dame, bethink thee! and beware:
'Tis not his: life alone may claim such care!
Another word and nay
I
need no more.
Accursed was the moment when he bore
Thee from the flames, which better far but
no I
then had mourn'd thee with a lover's woe Now
'tis thy lord that warns deceitful
thing!
Know'st thou that I can clip thy wanton wing?
In words alone I am not wont to chafe:
Look to thyself nor
deem thy falsehood safe!'


He rose and
slowly, sternly thence withdrew,
Rage in his eye and threats in his adieu:
Ah! little reck'd that chief of womanhood Which
frowns ne'er quell'd, nor menaces subdued
And little deem'd he what thy heart, Gulnare!
When soft could feel, and when incensed could dare.
His doubts appear'd to wrong nor
yet she knew
How deep the root from whence compassion grew She
was a slave from
such may captives claim
A fellowfeeling,
differing but in name;
Still half unconscious heedless
of his wrath,
Again she ventured on the dangerous path,
Again his rage repell'd until
arose
That strife of thought, the source of woman's woes!


VI.
Meanwhile, long, anxious, weary, still the same
Roll'd day and night: his soul could terror tame This
fearful interval of doubt and dread,
When every hour might doom him worse than dead,
When every step that echo'd by the gate,

Might entering lead where axe and stake await;
When every voice that grated on his ear
Might be the last that he could ever hear;
Could terror tame that
spirit stern and high
Had proved unwilling as unfit to die;
'Twas worn perhaps
decay'd yet
silent bore
That conflict, deadlier far than all before:
The heat of fight, the hurry of the gale,
Leave scarce one thought inert enough to quail;
But bound and fix'd in fetter'd solitude,
To pine, the prey of every changing mood;
To gaze on thine own heart; and meditate
Irrevocable faults, and coming fate Too
late the last to shun the
first to mend To
count the hours that struggle to thine end,
With not a friend to animate, and tell
To other ears that death became thee well;
Around thee foes to forge the ready lie,
And blot life's latest scene with calumny;
Before thee tortures, which the soul can dare,
Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear
But deeply feels' a single cry would shame To
valour's praise thy last and dearest claim;
The life thou leav'st below, denied above
By kind monopolists of heavenly love;
And more than doubtful paradise thy
heaven
Of earthly hope thy
loved one from thee riven.
Such were the thoughts that outlaw must sustain,
And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain:
And those sustain'd he boots
it well or ill?
Since not to sink beneath, is something still!


VII.
The first day pass'd he
saw not her Gulnare
The
second, thirdand
still she came not there;
But what her words avouch'd, her charms had done,
Or else he had not seen another sun.
The fourth day roll'd along, and with the night
Came storm and darkness in their mingling might.
Oh! how he listen'd to the rushing deep,
That ne'er till now so broke upon his sleep;
And his wild spirit wilder wishes sent,
Roused by the roar of his own element!
Oft had he ridden on that winged wave,
And loved its roughness for the speed it gave;
And now its dashing echo'd on his ear,
Along known voice alas!
too vainly near!
Loud sung the wind above; and, doubly
Shook o'er his turret cell the thundercloud;
And flash'd the lightning by the latticed bar,
To him more genial thanthe midnight star:
Close to the glimmering grate he dragg'd his chain

And hoped that peril might not prove in vain.
He raised his iron hand to Heaven, and pray'd
One pitying flash to mar the form it made:
His steel and impious prayer attract alike The
storm roll'd onward, and disdain'd to strike;
Its peal wax'd fainter eased
he
felt alone,
As if some faithless friend had spurn'd his groan!


VIII.
The midnight pass'd, and to the massy door
A light step came it
paused it
moved once more;
Slow turns the grating bolt and sullen key:
'Tis as his heart foreboded that
fair she!
Whate'er her sins, to him a guardian saint,
And beauteous still as hermit's hope can paint;
Yet changed since last within that cell she came,
More pale her cheek, more tremulous her frame:
On him she cast her dark and hurried eye,
Which spoke before her accents '
Thou must die!
Yes, thou must die there
is but one resource
The last the
worst if
torture were not worse.'
'Lady! I look to none; my lips proclaim
What last proclaim'd they Conrad
still the same:
Why shouldst thou seek an outlaw's life to spare,
And change the sentence I deserve to bear?
Well have I earn'd nor
here alone the
meed
of Seyd's revenge, by many a lawless deed.'


'Why should I seek? Because Oh!
didst thou not
Redeem my life from worse than slavery's lot?
Why should I seek? hath
misery made thee blind
To the fond workings of a woman's mind?
And must I say? albeit
my heart rebel
With all that woman feels, but should not tell Because,
despite thy crimes, that heart is moved:
It fear'd thee, thank'd thee, pitied, madden'd, loved.
Reply not, tell not now thy tale again,
Thou lov'st another, and I love in vain:
Though fond as mine her bosom, form more fair,
I rush through peril which she would not dare.
If that thy heart to hers were truly dear,
Were I thine own thou wert not lonely here:
An outlaw's spouse and leave her lord to roam!
What hath such gentle dame to do with home?
But speak not now o'er
thine and o'er my head
Hangs the keen sabre by a single thread;
If thou hast courage still, and wouldst be free,
Receive this poniard rise
and follow me!'


Ay in
my chains! my steps will gently tread,
With these adornments, o'er each slumbering head!



Thou hast forgot is
this a garb for flight?
Or is that instrument more fit for fight?'


'Misdoubting Corsair! I have gain'd the guard,
Ripe for revolt, and greedy for reward.
A single word of mine removes that chain:
Without some aid how here could I remain?
Well, since we met, hath sped my busy time,
If in aught evil, for thy sake the crime:
The crime '
tis none to punish those of Seyd.
That hated tyrant, Conrad he
must bleed!
I see thee shudder, but my soul is changed Wrong'd,
spurn'd, reviled, and it shall be avenged Accused
of what till now my heart ' disdain'd Too
faithful, though to bitter bondage chain'd.
Yes, smile! but
he had little cause to sneer,
I was not treacherous then, nor thou too dear:
But he has said it and
the jealous well Those
tyrants, teasing, tempting to rebel Deserve
the fate their fretting lips foretell.
I never loved he
bought me somewhat
high Since
with me came a heart he could not buy.
I was a slave unmurmuring; he hath said,
But for his rescue I with thee had fled.
'Twas false thou know'st but
let such augurs rue,
Their words are omens insult renders true.
Nor was thy respite granted to my prayer;
This fleeting grace was only to prepare
New torments for thy life, and my despair.
Mine too he threatens; but his dotage still
Would fain reserve me for his lordly will:
When wearier of these fleeting charms and me,
There yawns the sack, and yonder rolls the sea!
What, am I then a toy for dotard's play,
To wear but till the gilding frets away?
I saw thee loved
thee owe
thee all would
save,
If but to show how grateful is a slave.
But had he not thus menaced fame and life (
And well he keeps his oaths pronounced in strife) I
still had saved thee, but the Pacha spared.
Now I am all thine own, for all prepared:
Thou lov'st me not, nor know'st or
but the worst.
Alas! this love that
hatred are
the first Oh!
couldst thou prove my truth, thou wouldst not start,
Nor fear the fire that lights an Eastern heart;
'Tis now the beacon of thy safety now
It points within the port a Mainote prow:
But in one chamber, where our path must lead,
There sleeps he
must not wake the
oppressor Seyd!'


'Gulnar~GulnareI
never felt till now
My abject fortune, wither'd fame so low:



Seyd is mine enemy; had swept my band
From earth with ruthless but with open hand,
And therefore came I, in my bark of war,
To smite the smiter with the scimitar;
Such is my weapon not
the secret knife;
Who spares a woman's seeks not slumber's life.
Thine saved I gladly, Lady not
for this;
Let me not deem that mercy shown amiss.
Now fare thee well more
peace be with thy breast!
Night wears apace, my last of earthly rest!'


'Rest! rest! by sunrise must thy sinews shake,
And thy limbs writhe around the ready stake.
I heard the order saw
I
will not see If
thou wilt perish, I will fall with thee.
My life, my love, my hatred all
below
Are on this cast Corsair!
'tis but a blow!
Without it flight were idle how
evade
His sure pursuit? my
wrongs too unrepaid,
My youth disgraced, the long, long wasted years,
One blow shall cancel with our future fears;
But since the dagger suits thee less than brand,
I'll try the firmness of a female hand.
The guards, are gain'd one
moment all were o'er Corsair!
we meet in safety or no more;
If errs my feeble hand, the morning cloud
Will hover o'er thy scaffold, and my shroud


IX.
She turn'd, and vanish'd ere he could reply,
But his glance follow'd far with eager eye;
And gathering, as he could, the links that bound
His form, to curl their length, and curb their sound,
Since bar and bolt no more his steps preclude,
He, fast as fetter'd limbs allow, pursued.
'Twas dark and winding, and he knew not where
That passage led; nor lamp nor guard was there:
He sees a dusky glimmeringshall
he seek
Or shun that ray so indistinct and weak?
Chance guides his steps a
freshness seems to bear
Full on his brow, as if from morning air;
He reach'd an open gallery on
his eye
Gleam'd the last star of night, the clearing sky:
Yet scarcely heeded these another
light
From a lone chamber struck upon his sight.
Towards it he moved; a scarcely closing door
Reveal'd the ray within, but nothing more.
With hasty step a figure outward pass'd,
Then paused, and turn'd and
paused '
tis she at last!
No poniard in that hand, nor sign of ill '
Thanks to that softening heart she
could not kill!'
Again he look'd, the wildness of her eye

Starts from the day abrupt and fearfully.
She stopp'd threw
back her dark farfloating
hair,
That nearly veil'd her face and bosom fair,
As if she late had bent her leaning head
Above some object of her doubt or dread.
They meet upon
her brow unknown,
forgot Her
hurrying hand had left '
twas but a spot
Its hue was all he saw, and scarce withstood Oh!
slight but certain pledge of crime '
tis blood!


X.
He had seen battle he
had brooded lone
O'er promised pangs to sentenced guilt foreshown;
He had been tempted, chasten'd, and the chain
Yet on his arms might ever there remain:
But ne'er from strife, captivity, remorse From
all his feelings in their inmost force So
thrill'd, so shudder'd every creeping vein
As now they froze before that purple stain.
That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak,
Had banish'd all the beauty from her cheek!
Blood he had view'd, could view unmoved but
then
It flow'd in combat, or was shed by men!
XI.
'Tis donehe
nearly waked but
it is done.
Corsair! he perish'd thou
art dearly won.
All words would now be vain away
away!
Our bark is tossing '
tis already day.
The few gain'd over, now are wholly mine
And these thy yet surviving band shall join:
Anon my voice shall vindicate my hand,
When once our sail forsakes this hated strand.'
XII.
She clapp'd her hands, and through the gallery pour,
Equipp'd for flight, her vassa1s Greek
and Moor;
Silent but quick they stoop, his chains un bind;
Once more his limbs are free as mountain wind!
But on his heavy heart such sadness sate,
As if they there transfer'd that iron weight.
No words are utter'd at
her sign, a door
Reveals the secret passage to the shore:
The city lies behind they
speed, they reach
The glad waves dancing on the yellow beach;
And Conrad following, at her beck , obey'd,
Nor cared he now if rescued or betray'd;
Resistance were as useless as if Seyd
Yet lived to view the doom his ire decreed.
XIII.
Embark'd, the sail unfurl'd, the light breeze blew
How much had Conrad's memory to review!
Sunk be in contemplation, till the cape
Where last he anchor'd rear'd its giant shape.
Ah! since that fatal night, though brief the time,
Had swept an age of terror, grief, and crime.
As its far shadow frown'd above the mast,
He veil'd his face, and sorrow'd as he pass'd;
He thought of all Gonsalvo
and his band,
His fleeting triumph and his failing hand;
He thought on her afar, his lonely bride:
He turn'd and saw Gulnare,
the homicide!


XIV.
Sbe watch'd his features till she could not bear
Their freezing aspect and averted air;
And that strange fierceness, foreign to her eye,
Fell quench'd in tears, too late to shed or dry.
She knelt beside him and his hand she press'd,
'Thou may'st forgive, though Allah's self detest;
But for that deed of darkness what wert thou?
Reproach me but
not yet Oh!
spare me now!
I am not what I seem this
fearful night
My brain bewilder'd do
not madden quite
If I had never loved though less my guilt,
Thou hadst not lived to hate
me if
thou wilt.'
XV.
She wrongs his thoughts, they more himself upbraid
Than her, though undesign'd' the wretch be made;
But speechless all, deep, dark, and unexprest,
They bleed within that silent cell his
breast
Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough the surge,
The blue waves sport around the stern they urge;
Far on the horizon's verge appears a speck
A spot a
mast a
sail an
armed deck!
Their little bark her men of watch descry,
And ampler canvas woos the wind from high;
She bears her down majestically near,
Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier;
A flash is seen the
ball beyond their bow
Booms harmless, hissing to the deep below.
Uprose keen Conrad from his silent trance,
A long, long absent gladness in his glance;
'Tis minemy
bloodred
flag! Again again
I
am not all deserted on the main!'
They own the signal, answer to the ball,
Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken sail.
'Tis Conrad! Conrad!' shouting from the deck,
Command nor duty could their transport check!
With light alacrity and gaze of pride,
They view him mount once more his vessel's side;
A smile relaxing in each rugged face,

Their arms can scarce for bear a rough embrace.
He, half forgetting danger and defeat,
Returns their greeting as a chief may greet,
Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo's hand,
And feels he yet can conquer and command!


XVI.
These greetings o'er, the feelings that o'erflow,
Yet grieve to win him back without a blow;
They sail'd prepared for vengeance had
they known
A woman's hand secured that deed her own,
She were their queen less
scrupulous are they
Than haughty Conrad how they win their way.
With many an asking smile, and wondering stare,
They whisper round, and gaze upon Gulnare;
And her at
once above beneath
her sex
Whom blood appall'd not, their regards perplex.
To Conrad turns her faint imploring eye,
She drops her veil, and stands in silence by;
Her arms are meekly folded on that breast,
Which Conrad
safe to
fate resign'd the rest.
Though worse than frenzy could that bosom fill,
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,
The worst of crimes had left her woman still!
XVII.
This Conrad mark'd, and felt ah!
could he less? Hate
of that deed, but grief for her distress;
What she has done no tears can wash away,
And Heaven must punish on its angry day:
But it
was done: he knew, whate'er her guilt,
For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt;
And he was free! and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven!
And now he turn'd him to that darkeyed
slave
Whose brow was bow'd beneath the glance he gave,
Who now seem'd changed and humbled, faint and meek,
But varying oft the colour of her cheek
To deeper shades of paleness all
its red
That fearful spot which stain'd it from the dead!
He took that hand it
trembled now
too late So
soft in love, so wildly nerved in hate;
He clasp'd that hand it
trembled and
his own
Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone. 540
'Gulnare! ' but
she replied not '
dear Gulnare!'
She raised her eye her
only answer there At
once she sought and sunk in his embrace:
If he had driven her from that restingplace,
His had been more or less than mortal heart,
But good
or ill it
bade her not depart.
Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast,
His latest virtue then had join'd the rest.

Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss
That ask'd from form so fair no more than this,
The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith To
lips where Love had lavish'd all his breath
To lips whose
broken sighs such fragrance fling,
As he had fann'd them freshly with his wing!


XVIII.
They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle
To them the very rocks appear to smile;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons him their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,
And sportive dolphins bend them through the spray;
Even the hoarse seabird's
shrill, discordant shriek
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak!
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam?
XIX.
The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And 'midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain '
tis strange and
all remark,
Amid so many, hers alone is dark
'Tis strange of yore its welcome never fall'd,
Nor now, perchance, extinguish'd, only veil'd.
With the first boat descends he for the shore, 573
And looks impatient on the lingering oar.
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not, looks not leaps
into the wave,
Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and high
Ascends the path familiar to his eye.
He reach'd his turret door he
paused no
sound
Broke from within; and all was night around
He knock'd, and loudly footstep
nor reply
Announced that any heard or deem'd him nigh;
He knock'd, but faintly for
his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand.
The portal opens tis
a wellknown
face,
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent twice
his own essay'd,
And fail'd to frame the question they delay'd;
It quits his grasp expiring in the fall.
He would not wait for that reviving ray As
soon could he have linger'd there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridor,
Another chequers o'er the shadow'd floor.



His steps the chamber gain his
eyes behold
All that his heart believed not yet
fortold!

XX.
He turn'd not spoke
not sunk
not fix'd
his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed how
long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain!
In life it self she was so still and fair,
That death with gender aspect wither'd there;
And the cold flowers her colder hand contain'd,
In that last grasp as tenderly were strain'd
As if she scarcely felt, but feign'd asleep,
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow
And veil'd thought
shrinks from all that lurk'd below Oh!
o'er the eye Death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light;
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips Yet,
yet they seem as they forbore to smile,
And wish'd repose, but
only for awhile;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress?
Long, fairbut
spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;
These and
the pale pure cheek, became the bier But
she is nothing wherefore
is he here?
XXI.
He ask'd no questionall
were answer'd now
By the first glance on that still, marble brow.
It was enough she
died what
reck'd it how?
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once and
he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less;the
good explore,
For peace, those realms where guilt can never soar:
The proud, the wayward who
have fix'd below
Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all perchance
a mite But
who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost
In smiles tha't least befit who wear them most.
XXII.
By those, that deepest feel, Is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,

Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lull'd it into rest;
So feeble now his
mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confess'd without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears perchance
if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flow'd he
dried them to
In helpless hopeless
brokenness
of heart:
The sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim;
And the night cometh ne'er
to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye the
blindest of the blind!
Which may not dare
not see but turns aside
To blackest shade nor
will endure a guide!


XXIII.
His heart was form'd for softness warp'd
to wrong;
Betray'd too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure as
falls the dropping dew
Within the grot like
that had harden'd too;
Less clear perchance, its earthly trials pass'd,
But sunk, and chill'd, and petrified at last.
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shatter'd it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade it
shelter'd saved
till now.
The thunder came that
bolt hath blasted both,
The Granite's firmness, and the Lily' growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and wither'd where it fell
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shiver'd fragments on the barren ground!
XXIV.
'Tis morn to
venture on his lonely hour
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there, nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarm'd, their isle is traversed o'er:
Another morn another
bids them seek,
And shout his name till echo waxeth weak;
Mount: grotto, cavern, valley search'd in vain,
They find on shore a seaboat's
broken chain:
Their hope revivesthey
follow o'er the main.
'Tis idle all moons
roll on moons away,
And Conrad comes not, came not since that day:
Nor trace, nor tidings of his doom declare
Where lives his grief, or perish'd his despair!

Long mourn'd his band whom none could mourn beside;
And fair the monument they gave his bride:
For him they raise not the recording stone His
death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,
Link'd with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.

When I close a book
I open life.
I hear
faltering cries
among harbours.
Copper ignots
slide down sand-pits
to Tocopilla.
Night time.
Among the islands
our ocean
throbs with fish,
touches the feet, the thighs,
the chalk ribs
of my country.
The whole of night
clings to its shores, by dawn
it wakes up singing
as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling.
The wind
calls me
and Rodriguez calls,
and Jose Antonio--
I got a telegram
from the "Mine" Union
and the one I love
(whose name I won't let out)
expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able
to wrap me in paper,
to fill me up
with typography,
with heavenly imprints
or was ever able
to bind my eyes,
I come out of books to people orchards
with the hoarse family of my song,
to work the burning metals
or to eat smoked beef
by mountain firesides.
I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile


and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems-they
devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

The saddest sort of death to die
Would be to quit the game called life
And know, beneath the gentle sky,
You'd lived a slacker in the strife.
That nothing men on earth would find
To mark the spot that you had filled;
That you must go and leave behind
No patch of soil your hands had tilled.


I know no greater shame than this:
To feel that yours were empty years;
That after death no man would miss
Your presence in this vale of tears;
That you had breathed the fragrant air
And sat by kindly fires that burn,
And in earth's riches had a share
But gave no labor in return.


Yet some men die this way, nor care:
They enter and they leave life's door
And at the end, their record's bare—
The world's no better than before.
A few false tears are shed, and then,
In busy service, they're forgot.
We have no time to mourn for men
Who lived on earth but served it not.


A man in perfect peace to die
Must leave some mark of toil behind,
Some building towering to the sky,
Some symbol that his heart was kind,
Some roadway where strange feet may tread
That out of gratitude he made;
He cannot bravely look ahead
Unless his debt to life is paid.

I'd like to think when life is done
That I had filled a needed post.
That here and there I'd paid my fare
With more than idle talk and boast;
That I had taken gifts divine.
The breath of life and manhood fine,
And tried to use them now and then
In service for my fellow men.


I'd hate to think when life is through
That I had lived my round of years
A useless kind, that leaves behind
No record in this vale of tears;
That I had wasted all my days
By treading only selfish ways,
And that this world would be the same
If it had never known my name.


I'd like to think that here and there,
When I am gone, there shall remain
A happier spot that might have not
Existed had I toiled for gain;
That someone's cheery voice and smile
Shall prove that I had been worth while;
That I had paid with something fine
My debt to God for life divine.

Every morning you wait,
clothes, over a chair,
to fill yourself with
my vanity, my love,
my hope, my body.
Barely
risen from sleep,
I relinquish the water,
enter your sleeves,
my legs look for
the hollows of your legs,
and so embraced
by your indefatigable faithfulness
I rise, to tread the grass,
enter poetry,
consider through the windows,
the things,
the men, the women,
the deeds and the fights
go on forming me,
go on making me face things
working my hands,
opening my eyes,
using my mouth,
and so,
clothes,
I too go forming you,
extending your elbows,
snapping your threads,
and so your life expands
in the image of my life.
In the wind
you billow and snap
as if you were my soul,
at bad times
you cling
to my bones,
vacant, for the night,
darkness, sleep
populate with their phantoms
your wings and mine.
I wonder
if one day
a bullet
from the enemy
will leave you stained with my blood
and then
you will die with me
or one day
not quite
so dramatic
but simple,



you will fall ill,
clothes,
with me,
grow old
with me, with my body
and joined
we will enter
the earth.
Because of this
each day
I greet you
with reverence and then
you embrace me and I forget you,
because we are one
and we will go on
facing the wind, in the night,
the streets or the fight,
a single body,
one day, one day, some day, still.

BOMBAY
Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen
Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands --
A thousand mills roar through me where I glean
All races from all lands.
CALCUTTA
Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built,
Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold.
Hail, England! I am Asia -- Power on silt,
Death in my hands, but Gold!
MADRAS
Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow,
Wonderful kisses, so that I became
Crowned above Queens -- a withered beldame now,
Brooding on ancient fame.
RANGOON
Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade?
Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone,
And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid,
Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon.
SINGAPORE
Hail, Mother! East and West must seek my aid
Ere the spent gear may dare the ports afar.
The second doorway of the wide world's trade
Is mine to loose or bar.
HONG-KONG
Hail, Mother! Hold me fast; my Praya sleeps
Under innumerable keels to-day.
Yet guard (and landward), or to-morrow sweeps
Thy war-ships down the bay!
HALIFAX
Into the mist my guardian prows put forth,
Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie,


The Warden of the Honour of the North,
Sleepless and veiled am I!
QUEBEC AND MONTREAL
Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose,
Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate.
Now wake we and remember mighty blows,
And, fearing no man, wait!
VICTORIA
From East to West the circling word has passed,
Till West is East beside our land-locked blue;
From East to West the tested chain holds fast,
The well-forged link rings true!
CAPE TOWN
Hail! Snatched and bartered oft from hand to hand,
I dream my dream, by rock and heath and pine,
Of Empire to the northward. Ay, one land
From Lion's Head to Line!
MELBOURNE
Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place,
Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth,
Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-race
That whips our harbour-mouth!
SYDNEY
Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good;
Forcing strong wills perverse to steadfastness:
The first flush of the tropics in my blood,
And at my feet Success!
BRISBANE
The northern stirp beneath the southern skies --
I build a Nation for an Empire's need,
Suffer a little, and my land shall rise,
Queen over lands indeed!


HOBART
Man's love first found me; man's hate made me Hell;
For my babes' sake I cleansed those infamies.
Earnest for leave to live and labour well,
God flung me peace and ease.
AUCKLAND
Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart --
On us, on us the unswerving season smiles,
Who wonder 'mid our fern why men depart
To seek the Happy Isles!

There is joy in the woods just now,
The leaves are whispers of song,
And the birds make mirth on the bough
And music the whole day long,
And God! to dwell in the town
In these springlike summer days,
On my brow an unfading frown
And hate in my heart always—

A machine out of gear, aye, tired,
Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired.

Just forced to go on through fear,
For every day I must eat
And find ugly clothes to wear,
And bad shoes to hurt my feet
And a shelter for work-drugged sleep!
A mere drudge! but what can one do?
A man that’s a man cannot weep!
Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no!

But a slave should never grow tired,
Whom the masters have kindly hired.

But oh! for the woods, the flowers
Of natural, sweet perfume,
The heartening, summer showers
And the smiling shrubs in bloom,
Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn,
The fresh and life-giving air,
The billowing waves of corn
And the birds’ notes rich and clear:—

For a man-machine toil-tired
May crave beauty too—though he’s hired

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
"As all must be," I said within my heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;


So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."

When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by our
lane.
Every day I meet the hawker crying, "Bangles, crystal
bangles!"
There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must
take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home.
I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying,

"Bangles, crystal bangles!"
When at four in the afternoon I come back from the school,
I can see through the gate of that house the gardener digging

the ground.

He does what he likes with his spade, he soils his clothes
with dust, nobody takes him to task if he gets baked in the sun or
gets wet.

I wish I were a gardener digging away at the garden with
nobody to stop me from digging.
Just as it gets dark in the evening and my mother sends me to
bed,
I can see through my open window the watchman walking up and
down.
The lane is dark and lonely, and the street-lamp stands like
a giant with one red eye in its head.
The watchman swings his lantern and walks with his shadow at
his side, and never once goes to bed in his life.
I wish I were a watchman walking the streets all night,
chasing the shadows with my lantern.

O TO make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.


O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of

fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.


O the joy of my spirit! it is uncaged! it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time--I will have
thousands of globes, and all time.


O the engineer's joys!
To go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam--the merry shriek--the steam-whistle--the

laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.


O the gleesome saunter over fields and hill-sides!
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds--the moist fresh
stillness of the woods,
The exquisite smell of the earth at day-break, and all through the
forenoon.


O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys!
The saddle--the gallop--the pressure upon the seat--the cool gurgling
by the ears and hair.

O the fireman's joys!
I hear the alarm at dead of night,
I hear bells--shouts!--I pass the crowd--I run!
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.


O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena, in
perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his
opponent.


O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human Soul
is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless
floods.

O the mother's joys!
The watching--the endurance--the precious love--the anguish--the
patiently yielded life.

O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation;


The joy of soothing and pacifying--the joy of concord and harmony.


O to go back to the place where I was born!
To hear the birds sing once more!
To ramble about the house and barn, and over the fields, once more,
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.


O male and female!


O the presence of women! (I swear there is nothing more exquisite to
me than the mere presence of women;)

O for the girl, my mate! O for the happiness with my mate!

O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after the friendship of him
who, I fear, is indifferent to me.

O the streets of cities!

The flitting faces--the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot
tell how welcome they are to me.

O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the
coast!

O to continue and be employ'd there all my life!

O the briny and damp smell--the shore--the salt weeds exposed at low
water,

The work of fishermen--the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher.

O it is I!

I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear;

Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,

I laugh and work with them--I joke at my work, like a mettlesome
young man.

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot
on the ice--I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice;

Behold me, well-clothed, going gaily, or returning in the afternoon-my
brood of tough boys accompaning me,

My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one
else so well as they love to be with me,

By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.

Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to lift the
lobster-pots, where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know
the buoys;)

O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water, as I row,
just before sunrise, toward the buoys;

I pull the wicker pots up slantingly--the dark-green lobsters are
desperate with their claws, as I take them out--I insert wooden
pegs in the joints of their pincers,

I go to all the places, one after another, and then row back to the
shore,

There, in a huge kettle of boiling water, the lobsters shall be


boil'd till their color becomes scarlet.

Or, another time, mackerel-taking,

Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the
water for miles:

Or, another time, fishing for rock-fish, in Chesapeake Bay--I one of
the brown-faced crew:

Or, another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with
braced body,

My left foot is on the gunwale--my right arm throws the coils of
slender rope,

In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my
companions.

O boating on the rivers!

The voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)--the superb
scenery--the steamers,

The ships sailing--the Thousand Islands--the occasional timber-raft,
and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,

The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook
their supper at evening.

O something pernicious and dread!
Something far away from a puny and pious life!
Something unproved! Something in a trance!
Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free.


O to work in mines, or forging iron!

Foundry casting--the foundry itself--the rude high roof--the ample
and shadow'd space,

The furnace--the hot liquid pour'd out and running.

O to resume the joys of the soldier:

To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his sympathy!

To behold his calmness! to be warm'd in the rays of his smile!

To go to battle! to hear the bugles play, and the drums beat!

To hear the crash of artillery! to see the glittering of the bayonets
and musket-barrels in the sun!

To see men fall and die, and not complain!

To taste the savage taste of blood! to be so devilish!

To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.

O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!

I feel the ship's motion under me--I feel the Atlantic breezes
fanning me,

I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head--There--she blows!

--Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest--We see--we
descend, wild with excitement,

I leap in the lower'd boat--We row toward our prey, where he lies,


We approach, stealthy and silent--I see the mountainous mass,
lethargic, basking,

I see the harpooneer standing up--I see the weapon dart from his
vigorous arm:

O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded whale,
settling, running to windward, tows me;

--Again I see him rise to breathe--We row close again,

I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the
wound,

Again we back off--I see him settle again--the life is leaving him
fast,

As he rises, he spouts blood--I see him swim in circles narrower and
narrower, swiftly cutting the water--I see him die;

He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then
falls flat and still in the bloody foam.

O the old manhood of me, my joy!
My children and grand-children--my white hair and beard,
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.


O the ripen'd joy of womanhood!


O perfect happiness at last!


I am more than eighty years of age--my hair, too, is pure white--I am
the most venerable mother;

How clear is my mind! how all people draw nigh to me!

What attractions are these, beyond any before? what bloom, more than
the bloom of youth?

What beauty is this that descends upon me, and rises out of me?

O the orator's joys!

To inflate the chest--to roll the thunder of the voice out from the
ribs and throat,

To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,

To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue.

O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself--receiving identity
through materials, and loving them--observing characters, and
absorbing them;

O my soul, vibrated back to me, from them--from facts, sight,
hearing, touch, my phrenology, reason, articulation,
comparison, memory, and the like;

The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and
flesh;

My body, done with materials--my sight, done with my material
eyes;

Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material
eyes which finally see,

Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,
embraces, procreates.


O the farmer's joys!

Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's,
Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys;

To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work,

To plow land in the fall for winter-sown crops,

To plough land in the spring for maize,

To train orchards--to graft the trees--to gather apples in the fall.

O the pleasure with trees!
The orchard--the forest--the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree,
The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia.


O Death! the voyage of Death!

The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,
for reasons;

Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn'd, or
render'd to powder, or buried,

My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,

My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,
further offices, eternal uses of the earth.

O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore!

To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep--to race naked along the
shore.

O to realize space!

The plenteousness of all--that there are no bounds;

To emerge, and be of the sky--of the sun and moon, and the flying
clouds, as one with them.

O the joy of a manly self-hood!

Personality--to be servile to none--to defer to none--not to any
tyrant, known or unknown,

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,

To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,

To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad chest,

To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the
earth.

Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth?

Joys of the dear companions, and of the merry word, and laughing
face?

Joys of the glad, light-beaming day--joy of the wide-breath'd
games?

Joy of sweet music--joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers?

Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner--the strong carouse, and
drinking?


Yet, O my soul supreme!
Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart--the tender, gloomy heart?
Joy of the solitary walk--the spirit bowed yet proud--the suffering


and the struggle?
The agonistic throes, the extasies--joys of the solemn musings, day

or night?
Joys of the thought of Death--the great spheres Time and Space?
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals--the Divine Wife--the


sweet, eternal, perfect Comrade?
Joys all thine own, undying one--joys worthy thee, O Soul.

O, while I live, to be the ruler of life--not a slave,
To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
No fumes--no ennui--no more complaints, or scornful criticisms.


O me repellent and ugly!
To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving my
interior Soul impregnable,
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

O to attract by more than attraction!
How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none of
the rest,
It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws.

O joy of suffering!
To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face!
To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect


nonchalance!
To be indeed a God!


O, to sail to sea in a ship!
To leave this steady, unendurable land!
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the


houses;
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
To sail, and sail, and sail!


O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,
To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words--full of joys.

This winter I was outside Moscow,
But when the time for work came round,
Through the blizzard, biting frost and snow,
I made the journey into town.


At the hour I stepped outside the door
Not a soul could be seen on the street,
And through the forest darkness drifted forth
The crunching echo of my tramping feet.


At the crossing I was greeted
By the willows of the vacant plot.
The constellations towered above the world
In the dark chill of January's pit.


And usually, there behind the yards,
The number forty or the early mail
Would overhaul me, pulling hard,
But the six forty-five was my own train.


Suddenly some invisible tentacles
Would draw into a circle lines of light,
As a massive searchlight hurtled past
On to the viaduct out of the night.


Once in the carriage's tuffy heat
I would allow myself to sink
Into the state of innate weakness
I imbibed with my mother's milk.


Through all the struggles of the past,
Through all the years of war and want,
I gazed on Russia'a unique face
In silent awe and wonderment.


Passing beyond this adoration,
I worshipped as I looked around
At countrywomen, students, workers
Living on the edge of town.


I could not see a single trace
Of servitude imposed by poverty.
Each new discomfort and each change
Was borne with lordly dignity.


Bunched close together in a group,
Boys and girls sat reading there,
Struck varied poses as they read,
Drinking in the words like vital air.


Moscow greeted us in darkness
Already lined with silver light,



As we emerged from underground,
Out of the ambiguity of night.

Our future pressed against the rails,
Flooding my senses as they went,
With floral soap's lingering trace
And honey-cakes' enticing scent.

To wed, or not to wed; that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The bills and house rent of a wedded fortune,
Or to say "nit" when she proposes,
And by declining cut her. To wed; to smoke
No more; And have a wife at home to mend
The holes in socks and shirts
And underwear and so forth. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To wed for life;

To wed; perchance to fight; ay, there's the rub;
For in that married life what fights may come,
When we have honeymooning ceased
Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes the joy of single life.
For who would bear her mother's scornful tongue,
Canned goods for tea, the dying furnace fire;
The pangs of sleepless nights when baby cries;
The pain of barking shins upon a chair and
Closing waists that button down the back,
When he himself might all these troubles shirk
With a bare refusal? Who would bundles bear,
And grunt and sweat under a shopping load?
Who would samples match; buy rats for hair,
Cart cheese and crackers home to serve at night
For lunch to feed your friends; play pedro
After tea; sing rag time songs, amusing
Friendly neighbors. Buy garden tools
To lend unto the same. Stay home at nights
In smoking coat and slippers and slink to bed
At ten o'clock to save the light bills?
Thus duty does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of matrimony
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of chores;
And thus the gloss of marriage fades away,
And loses its attraction.

Writing
these
odes
in this
year nineteen
hundred and
fifty-five,
readying and tuning
my demanding, murmuring lyre,
I know who I am
and where my song is going.
I understand
that the shopper for myths
and mysteries
may enter
my wood
and adobe
house of odes,
may despise
the utensils,
the portraits
of father and mother and country
on the walls,
the simplicity
of the bread
and the saltcellar. But
that's how it is in my house of odes.
I deposed the dark monarchy,
the useless flowing hair of dreams,
I trod on the tail
of the cerebral reptile,
and set things
-- water and fire in
harmony with man and earth.
I want everything
to have
a handle,
I want everything to be
a cup or a tool,
I want people to enter a hardware
store through the door of my odes.
I work at
cutting
newly hewn boards,
storing casks
of honey,
arranging
horseshoes, harness,
forks:
I want everyone to enter here,
let them ask questions,
ask for anything they want.


I am from the South, a Chilean,
a sailor
returned
from the seas.
I did not stay in the islands,
a king.
I did not stay ensconced
in the land of dreams.
I returned to labor simply
beside others,
for everyone.
So that everyone
may live here,
I build my house
with transparent
odes.

Humble home. But rum, and charcoal
Grog of sketches on the wall,
And the cell becomes a mansion,
And the garret is a hall.


No more waves of housecoats: questions,
Even footsteps disappear;
Glassy mica fills the latticed
Work-encompassed vault of air.


Voice, commanding as a levy,
Does not leave a thing immune,
Smelting, fusing… In his gullet
Flows the tin of molten spoons.


What is fame for him, and glory,
Name, position in the world,
When the sudden breath of fusion
Blends his words into the Word?


He will burn for it his chattels,
Friendship, reason, daily round.
On his desk-a glass, unfinished,
World forgotten, clock unwound.


Clustered stanzas change like seething
Wax at fortune-telling times.
He will bless the sleeping children
With the steam of molten rhymes.

Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away --
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!
We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland -- met the winter gales --
Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.
Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,
All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,
Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray --
Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!
One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by;
Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo'c'sle short;
Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly;
Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.
Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul;
Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll;
Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray --
So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay!
'Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she'd break;
Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock;
Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake;
Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block.
Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal;
Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul;
Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day --
Hi! we cursed the Bolivar knocking round the Bay!
O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still --
Up and down and back we went, never time for breath;
Then the money paid at Lloyd's caught her by the heel,
And the stars ran round and round dancin' at our death.
Aching for an hour's sleep, dozing off between;
'Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green;
'Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play --
That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay.
Once we saw between the squalls, lyin' head to swell --
Mad with work and weariness, wishin' they was we --
Some damned Liner's lights go by like a long hotel;
Cheered her from the Bolivar swampin' in the sea.
Then a grayback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed;
"Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell -- rig the winches aft!
Yoke the kicking rudder-head -- get her under way!"
So we steered her, pulley-haul, out across the Bay!
Just a pack o' rotten plates puttied up with tar,
In we came, an' time enough, 'cross Bilbao Bar.


Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we
Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!
Seven men from all the world, back to town again,
Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Seven men from out of Hell. Ain't the owners gay,
'Cause we took the "Bolivar" safe across the Bay?

I Hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat--the deckhand singing on the
steamboat deck;

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as he stands;

The wood-cutter's song--the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon
intermission, or at sundown;

The delicious singing of the mother--or of the young wife at work--or of the girl
sewing or washing--Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;

The day what belongs to the day--At night, the party of young fellows, robust,
friendly,

Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

When they were come into Faery's Court
They rang -- no one at home -- all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faerys do
For Faries be as human lovers true --
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd
And where the very books as if affraid
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
'No one at home'! the fretful princess cry'd
'And all for nothing such a dre[a]ry ride
And all for nothing my new diamond cross
No one to see my persian feathers toss
No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.
Ape, Dwarf and Fool why stand you gaping there
Burst the door open, quick -- or I declare
I'll switch you soundly and in pieces tear.'
The Dwarf began to tremble and the Ape
Star'd at the Fool, the Fool was all agape
The Princess grasp'd her switch but just in time
The Dwarf with piteous face began to rhyme.
'O mighty Princess did you ne'er hear tell
What your poor servants know but too too well
Know you the three great crimes in faery land
The first alas! poor Dwarf I understand
I made a whipstock of a faery's wand
The next is snoring in their company
The next the last the direst of the three
Is making free when they are not at home.
I was a Prince -- a baby prince -- my doom
You see, I made a whipstock of a wand
My top has henceforth slept in faery land.
He was a Prince the Fool, a grown up Prince
But he has never been a King's son since
He fell a snoring at a faery Ball
Your poor Ape was a Prince and he poor thing
But ape -- so pray your highness stay awhile
'Tis sooth indeed we know it to our sorrow --
Persist and you may be an ape tomorrow --
While the Dwarf spake the Princess all for spite
Peal'd the brown hazel twig to lilly white
Clench'd her small teeth, and held her lips apart
Try'd to look unconcerned with beating heart.
They saw her highness had made up her mind
And quaver'd like the reeds before the wind
And they had had it, but O happy chance
The Ape for very fear began to dance
And grin'd as all his uglyness did ache--
She staid her vixen fingers for his sake
He was so very ugly: then she took
Her pocket mirror and began to look
First at herself and [then] at him and then


She smil'd at her own beauteous face again.
Yet for all this -- for all her pretty face
She took it in her head to see the place.
Women gain little from experience
Either in Lovers, husbands or expense.
The more their beauty the more fortune too
Beauty before the wide world never knew.
So each fair reasons -- tho' it oft miscarries.
She thought her pretty face would please the fa[e]ries.
'My darling Ape I wont whip you today
Give me the Picklock sirrah and go play.'
They all three wept but counsel was as vain
As crying cup biddy to drops of rain.
Yet lingeringly did the sad Ape forth draw
The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.
The Princess took it and dismounting straight
Trip'd in blue silver'd slippers to the gate
And touch'd the wards, the Door full courteously
Opened -- she enter'd with her servants three.
Again it clos'd and there was nothing seen
But the Mule grasing on the herbage green.
End of Canto xii.


Canto the xiii.
The Mule no sooner saw himself alone
Than he prick'd up his Ears -- and said 'well done!
At least unhappy Prince I may be free --
No more a Princess shall side saddle me
O King of Othaiete -- tho' a Mule
'Aye every inch a King' -- tho' 'Fortune's fool.'
Well done -- for by what Mr. Dwarfy said
I would not give a sixpence for her head.'
Even as he spake he trotted in high glee
To the knotty side of an old Pollard tree
And rub'd his sides against the mossed bark
Till his Girths burst and left him naked stark
Except his Bridle -- how get rid of that
Buckled and tied with many a twist and plait.
At last it struck him to pretend to sleep
And then the thievish Monkies down would creep
And filch the unpleasant trammels quite away.
No sooner thought of than adown he lay
Sham'd a good snore -- the Monkey-men descended
And whom they thought to injure they befriended.
They hung his Bridle on a topmost bough
And of[f] he went run, trot, or anyhow--

I recall that man and not two centuries
have passed since I saw him,
he went neither by horse nor by carriage:
purely on foot
he outstripped
distances,
and carried no sword or armour,
only nets on his shoulder,
axe or hammer or spade,
never fighting the rest of his species:
his exploits were with water and earth,
with wheat so that it turned into bread,
with giant trees to render them wood,
with walls to open up doors,
with sand to construct the walls,
and with ocean for it to bear.


I knew him and he is still not cancelled in me.


The carriages fell to pieces,
war destroyed doors and walls,
the city was a handful of ashes,
all the clothes turned to dust,
and he remains to me,
he survives in the sand,
when everything before
seemed imperishable but him.


In the going and coming of families
at times he was my father or kinsman
or perhaps it was scarcely him or not
the one who did not return to his house
because water or earth swallowed him up
or a tree or an engine killed him,
or he was the saddened carpenter
who went behind the coffin, without tears,
someone in the end who had no name,
except those that metal or timber have,
and on whom others gazed from on high
without seeing the ant
for the anthill
and so that when his feet did not stir,
because the poor exhausted one had died,
they never saw what they had not seen:
already there were other feet where he'd been.


The other feet were still his,
and the other hands,
the man remained:
when it seemed that now he was done for
he was the same once more,
there he was digging again at the earth,



cutting cloth, minus a shirt,
there he was and was not, like before,
he had gone down and was once more,
and since he never owned graveyards,
or tombs, nor was his name carved
on the stone he sweated to quarry,
no one knew he had come
and no one knew when he died,
so that only when the poor man could
he returned to life once more, without it being noted.


He was the man, no doubt of it, without heritage,
without cattle, without a flag,
and he was not distinguished from others,
the others who were him,
from the heights he was grey like the subsoil,
tanned like the leather,
he was yellow reaping the wheat,
he was black down in the mine,
he was the colour of stone on the fortress,
in the fishing boat the colour of tuna,
and the colour of horses in the meadow:
how could anyone distinguish him
if he was inseparable, elemental,
earth, coal or sea vested in man?


Where he lived whatever
a man touched grew:
the hostile stones,
quarried
by his hands,
took on order
and one by one formed
the right clarity of a building,
he made bread with his hands,
moved the engines,
the distances peopled themselves with towns,
other men grew,
bees arrived,
and by man's creating and breeding
spring walked the market squares
between bakeries and doves.


The maker of loaves was forgotten,
he who quarried and journeyed, beating down
and opening furrows, transporting sand,
when everything existed he no longer existed,
he gave his existence, that's all.
He went elsewhere to labour, and at last
he was dead, rolling
like a stone in the river:
death carried him downstream.



I, who knew him, saw him descend
till he was no longer except what he left:
roads he could scarcely know,
houses he never ever would live in.


I turn to see him, and I await him


I see him in his grave and resurrected.


I distinguish him among all
who are his equals
and it seems to me it cannot be,
that like this we go nowhere,
that to survive like this holds no glory.


I believe that this man
must be enthroned, rightly shod and crowned.
I believe that those who made such things
must be the masters of all these things.
And that those who made bread should eat!


And those in the mines must have light!


Enough now of grey men enslaved!


Enough of the pale 'missing ones'!


Not another man passes except as a king.


Not a single woman without her crown.


Golden gauntlets for every hand.


Fruits of the sun for all the unknowns!


I knew that man and when I could,
when he still had eyes in his head,
when he still had a voice in his mouth
I searched for him among tombs, and I said
grasping his arm that was not yet dust:


'All will be gone, you will live on,


You ignite life.


You made what is yours.'


So let no one trouble themselves when
I seem to be alone and am not alone,
I am with no one and speak for them all:



Some listen to me, without knowing,
but those I sing, those who do know
go on being born, and will fill up the Earth.

Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all,
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done,
An' go observin' matters till they die.
What do it matter where or 'ow we die,
So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all --
The different ways that different things are done,
An' men an' women lovin' in this world --
Takin' our chances as they come along,
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?
In cash or credit -- no, it aren't no good;
You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.
But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done?
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world --
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long.
Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.
Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,
For something in my 'ead upset me all,
Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,
An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die,
An' met my mate -- the wind that tramps the world!
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readin' done,
An' turn another -- likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done --
Excep' when awful long -- I've found it good.
So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!"

Those who say Gord Struth; those who say Swelp Me pensioned
soldiers and sailors, the wreckage of Empire are
nothing, nothing at all, compared with the warriors of Excise
who slash the blue frontiers with their great axe-blows.
Pipes in their teeth, blades in their hands, deep, unruffled,
when darkness noses at the woods like a cow's muzzle, off they go,
leading their dogs, to hold their nocturnal and terrible revels!
They report the bacchantes to the laws of today.
They clap hands on the shoulders of Fausts and of Devils:
'Now then, none of that, you old dodgers! Put those bundles down!'
And, when his serene highness accosts the young,
the Customs Man holds fast to all contraband charms!
The Inferno for Offenders whom his hand has frisked!

What is the song the children sing,
When doorway lilacs bloom in Spring,
And the Schools are loosed, and the games are played
That were deadly earnest when Earth was made?
Hear them chattering, shrill and hard,
After dinner-time, out in the yard,
As the sides are chosen and all submit
To the chance of the lot that shall make them "It."
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Catch a nigger by the toe!
(If he hollers let him go!)
Eenee, Meenee. Mainee, Mo!
You-are-It!"
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, and Mo
Were the First Big Four of the Long Ago,
When the Pole of the Earth sloped thirty degrees,
And Central Europe began to freeze,
And they needed Ambassadors staunch and stark
To steady the Tribes in the gathering dark:
But the frost was fierce and flesh was frail,
So they launched a Magic that could not fail.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Hear the wolves across the snow!
Some one has to kill 'em--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make--you--It!"
Slowly the Glacial Epoch passed,
Central Europe thawed out at last;
And, under the slush of the melting snows
The first dim shapes of the Nations rose.
Rome, Britannia, Belgium, Gaul--
Flood and avalanche fathered them all;
And the First Big Four, as they watched the mess,
Pitied Man in his helplessness.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Trouble starts When Nations grow,
Some one has to stop it--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Make-you-It!"
Thus it happened, but none can tell
What was the Power behind the spell--
Fear, or Duty, or Pride, or Faith--
That sent men shuddering out to death--
To cold and watching, and, worse than these,
Work, more work, when they looked for ease--
To the days discomfort, the nights despair,
In the hope of a prize that they never could share,
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Man is born to Toil and Woe.


One will cure another--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make--you--It!"
Once and again, as the Ice went North
The grass crept up to the Firth of Forth.
Once and again, as the Ice came South
The glaciers ground over Lossiemouth.
But, grass or glacier, cold or hot,
The men went out who would rather not,
And fought with the Tiger, the Pig and the Ape,
To hammer the world into decent shape.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
What's the use of doing so?
Ask the Gods, for we don't know;
But Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make-us-It!"
Nothing is left of that terrible rune
But a tag of gibberish tacked to a tune
That ends the waiting and settles the claims
Of children arguing over their games;
For never yet has a boy been found
To shirk his turn when the turn came round;
Nor even a girl has been known to say
"If you laugh at me I shan't play."
For-- "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo,
(Don't you let the grown-ups know!)
You may hate it ever so,
But if you're chose you're bound to go,
When Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make-you-It!"

These are cities!
And this is the people for whom these
Alleghenys and Lebanons of dream have been raised!
Castles of wood and crystal move on tracks and invisible winches.


Old craters ringed with mammoth statues and
coppery palms roar melodiously in flames.
Festivals of love reverberate
from the canals suspended behind the castles.


Chimes echo through the gorges like a chase.
Corporations of giant singers assemble,
their vestments and oriflames
brilliant as the mountain-peaks.


On platforms in the midst of gulfs,
Rolands brazen their bravuras.
From abysmal catwalks and the rooftops of inns,
a burning sky hoists flags upon the masts.


The collapse of apotheosis
unites the heights to the depths
where seraphic shecentaurs
wind among the avalanches.


Above the plateaus of the highest reaches,
the sea, troubled by the perpetual birth of Venus
and loaded with choral fleets amid
an uproar of pearls and precious conches,
grows dark at times with mortal thunder.


On the slopes,
harvests of flowers
as big as our weapons
and goblets are bellowing.


Processions of Mabs in red-opaline scale the ravines.
On high, their feet in the waterfalls and briars,
stags give suck to Diana.


Bacchantes of the suburbs weep,
and the moon burns and howls.
Venus enters the caves
of the black-smiths and hermits.


Clusters of belfries repeat the ideas of the people.
Issues from castles of bone an unknown music.
In the boroughs legends
are born and enthusiasm germinate.


A paradise of storms collapses.
Savages dance without stopping the festival of night.



And, for one hour, I descended into the swarm
of a boulevard of Baghdad
where groups of peple were singing
the joy of the new work,
circulating under a heavy wind
without being able to escape those fabulous phantoms
of the mountains to which one must return.

What good arms, what wondrous hour
will restore to me that region
whence come my slumbers
and least movements?

The Tudor Monarchy
Once on a time was a King anxious to understand
What was the wisest thing a man could do for his land.
Most of his population hurried to answer the question,
Each with a long oration, each with a new suggestion.
They interrupted his meals--he wasn't safe in his bed from 'em--
They hung round his neck and heels, and at last His Majesty fled
from 'em.
He put on a leper's cloak (people leave lepers alone),
Out of the window he broke, and abdicated his throne.
All that rapturous day, while his Court and his ministers mourn
him,
He danced on his own highway till his own Policeman warned
him.
Gay and cheerful he ran (lepers don't cheer as a rule)
Till he found a philosopher-man teaching an infant-school.
The windows were open wide, the King sat down on the grass,
And heard the children inside reciting "Our King is an ass."
The King popped in his head: "Some people would call this
treason,
But I think you are right," he said; "Will you kindly give me your
reason?"
Lepers in school are as rare as kings with a leper's dress on,
But the class didn't stop or stare; it calmly went on with the
lesson:
"The wisest thing, we suppose, that a man can do for his land.
Is the work that lies under his nose, with the tools that lie under
his hand."
The King whipped off his cloak, and stood in his crown before
'em.
He said: "My dear little folk, Ex ore parvulorum--."
(Which is Latin for "Children know more than grown-ups would
credit")
You have shown me the road to go, and I propose to tread it."
Back to his Kingdom he ran, and issued a Proclamation,
"Let every living man return to his occupation!"
Then he explained to the mob who cheered in his palace and round it,
"I've been to look for a job, and Heaven be praised I've found it!"

The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought,
The cheque was spent that the shearer earned,
and the sheds were all cut out;
The publican's words were short and few,
and the publican's looks were black --
And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back.

For time means tucker, and tramp you must,

where the scrubs and plains are wide,
With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;
All day long in the dust and heat -- when summer is on the track -With
stinted stomachs and blistered feet,

they carry their swags Out Back.

He tramped away from the shanty there, when the days were long and hot,
With never a soul to know or care if he died on the track or not.
The poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how much they lack,
But only God and the swagmen know how a poor man fares Out Back.


He begged his way on the parched Paroo and the Warrego tracks once more,
And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the Western stations shore;
But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack --
The traveller never got hands in wool,


though he tramped for a year Out Back.

In stifling noons when his back was wrung

by its load, and the air seemed dead,
And the water warmed in the bag that hung to his aching arm like lead,
Or in times of flood, when plains were seas,

and the scrubs were cold and black,
He ploughed in mud to his trembling knees, and paid for his sins Out Back.

He blamed himself in the year `Too Late' -


in the heaviest hours of life -'
Twas little he dreamed that a shearing-mate had care of his home and wife;
There are times when wrongs from your kindred come,

and treacherous tongues attack --
When a man is better away from home, and dead to the world, Out Back.

And dirty and careless and old he wore, as his lamp of hope grew dim;
He tramped for years till the swag he bore seemed part of himself to him.
As a bullock drags in the sandy ruts, he followed the dreary track,
With never a thought but to reach the huts when the sun went down Out Back.


It chanced one day, when the north wind blew


in his face like a furnace-breath,
He left the track for a tank he knew -- 'twas a short-cut to his death;
For the bed of the tank was hard and dry, and crossed with many a crack,
And, oh! it's a terrible thing to die of thirst in the scrub Out Back.

A drover came, but the fringe of law was eastward many a mile;


He never reported the thing he saw, for it was not worth his while.
The tanks are full and the grass is high in the mulga off the track,
Where the bleaching bones of a white man lie

by his mouldering swag Out Back.

For time means tucker, and tramp they must,

where the plains and scrubs are wide,
With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;
All day long in the flies and heat the men of the outside track
With stinted stomachs and blistered feet

must carry their swags Out Back.