Downing legends : stories in rhyme / J. W. DeForest [electronic text]

THE ENCHANTED VOYAGE

IV

THE ENCHANTED VOYAGE

I

Hurrah for Downing! He had done Such doughty deeds that Freedom's sun Had often paused in middle sky To hear his fearful charging cry, And rushed through many a sleepless night To see the morn's appointed fight.

Alone our rustic Joshua fought, Yet such deliverance had wrought That all New England's sacred coasts Were clear of Tories, save as ghosts, While Britons, Hessians, Mingos, witches Had fled, or filled their final ditches.

In. short the Downeast land was freed From tyrant's breed and Tophet's creed; And every Yankee man might raise His garden-sauce and hymns of praise, Nor fear lest Tories, sly as moles, Should hack his independence poles; Lest purchased bravos, foreign-born, Should cut his throat and purse and corn; Lest wizard pinches, pricks and beatings Should interrupt his evening meetings.

II

But Downing might not cease his labor, Nor even wipe his bloody sabre While foeman trampled any tittle Of earth where humans guess and whittle. How could he think of crops and cattle, How think of anything but battle, While demon-fleets in weird processions Imported hordes of Belial's Hessians To captivate and slay his fellows Beyond the Hudson's crystal billows, Or sleep their beery sleep and fatten Upon the sacred isle, Manhattan?

Thus roused to fury, Downing thundered Such words that even Shiloh wondered, And feared lest toils too elephantic Had driven the Yankee Sampson frantic.

"I'll build," he roared with indignation, "A fleet to save our chosen nation; I'll cruise about the briny surges In spite of Guildhall's demiurges;* 1.1 I'll harry all the tarnal regions That breed the sassage-eating legions, And drive Apollyon's self to wrestle Like mad to save his Hesse Cassel."

III

So, grinding axe and chisel bright, And felling trees o'er hill and dale,

He joinered out with Yankee sleight A squadron of a single sail About as terrible to meet As Jefferson's mosquito fleet.

But like ingenious Crusoe, he Forgot that seamen need the sea, And built his ocean-scourge at home, A score of miles from ocean's foam, Where certainly she never struck Her flag to foeman's better luck, But also never shone in fray, Nor ever made a knot a day; For even clippers cannot travel A sheet of cobblestone and gravel.

But genius finds all things a school, And learns from errors how to rule. Our skipper's purpose faltered not Because he failed to sail a lot. He saw that he must seek the main, Or launch his navies all in vain; That nothing short of ocean's roar Would answer for a commodore.

Instructed thus, he climbed astride His horse, as country vikings ride, And journeyed south a summer day, Enquiring all the drouthy way If any seaport, wharf or pier Existed near the vasty mere, And also where a Whiggish grip Might clapperclaw a Tory ship.

IV

At last he spied a glorious sight, The blue Atlantic, jeweled bright With countless ripples, shining keen As facets graved in tourmaline; And just below the bowldered hill Whereon he paused to gaze his fill, He found the very thing he lacked To be an ocean god in fact.

Beside the drowsy, nodding sedge That rimmed a tiny haven's edge, Where baby billows romped and laughed As though their feather-heads were daft, He found a jaunty coasting craft, (At anchor, though with canvas spread,) Which had a mast and figure-head And boom and rudder, like the one Himself had built a month agone; Whereat he thanked the kindly skies And claimed the sloop as lawful prize.

Some thieving tories lurked aboard Who promptly died by Freedom's sword, For vagabonds of traitor kind Were not a whit to Downing's mind, And rarely fled his noble hate Withouten loss of limb or pate, As crabs escape from mortal rout Because their legs and tails pull out.

The skirmish done, the pirates slain, Our chieftain snapped the anchor chain

And turned without a change of face To challenge Fortune's weird embrace. He turned his back on natal shore And all the life he lived before. Alone he dared the protean sea; Alone, yet confident that he Would surely reach the other beach And spoil the men of Teuton speech, And make their Thor and Odin flee.

V

But eftersoon, beneath his feet, He heard a sharp refrain of greet, And then he thought the plaining tone Was like his darling Esther's own, The voice to him of sweetest sound In all our fallen planet's round.

He leaped below; he found her there Begirt with many a link and snare, So bound by that piratic crew Whose blood besmirched the rearward blue. He snapped her bonds like brittle glass, Or tender withes of summer grass, And might have bursted them the same, No matter what their stuff and frame; For wondrous wight was he in might As any giant fame can cite, Far huskier than men we raise In these degenerate, mawkish days When philanthropic frenzy saves

Unworthy types from clement graves, And holds in mischievous subjection The law of natural selection.

VI

A thrilling tale the daughter told, Right strange to folk of modern mould, Though like adventures often came To gracious maids of Grecian name, To Andromeda by the shore, To Proserpine and many more.

She walked at eve a lonely wood, Reciting hymns in dreamy mood, And watching rapt the boreal lights That filled the hollow sky with flights Of saintly ghosts in bright attire, Ascending swift on wings of fire; When all at once the glory died And shudders through the forest sighed, And crickets hushed their cheery shout, And fireflies put their lanterns out, As though a mighty fiend drew near Who draped effulgent night in fear.

Then overhead the branches clove, And through the trembling shadows drove A sombre form without a form, No doubt a wraith of night and storm, Who lifted her on gloomy plumes Athwart the evening's ghostly brumes O'er glinting lake and woodland brown

And frowning crag and glimmering town, To leave her captivate with those Who lately fell by Downing's blows.

Which tale her father never doubted, Because, although his arm had routed The wizard hordes and goblin legions In manifold New England regions, He knew a fiendish remnant scouted From point to point as Satan's skinners To plague the saints and help the sinners.

VII

Rejoiced to meet his child again And break anew Apollyon's chain, Our commodore pursued his cruise And found no little to amuse A Yankee fond of information Who loved to study all creation.

Around him, thick and tame as sheep, Appeared the wonders of the deep; Sea-serpents two miles long, or more, (For Downing often called it four), Reefs overrun with ocean maids (Who sang, of course, and twined their braids), Leviathans, behemoths, whales, And bugling tritons dressed in scales; While, far aloft, flew deadlier forms, Foreboding wrack of wheeling storms; For now a wizard, now a wraith, (If Downing's tale deserves our faith)

Shot swiftly o'er the frighted seas With angry hum like bumblebees, The messengers of George's rage To Arnold, Clinton, Howe and Gage.

Alas that Downing failed to smite These caitiffs in their eldritch flight, For, peering through their skinny claws, They spied the Thor of freedom's cause And guessed aright his daring plan To martellate the Hessian clan. So, spurring goat and cat and broom, They bustled on through sheen and gloom To Arnold, famed and mighty traitor, Their evil commonwealth's dictator, And brought him word of Downing's antic Attempt to cross the fierce Atlantic.

VIII

As awful lords of Gaza jeered And winked the eye and wagged the beard, When Sampson stood within their fane, His tresses shorn, his valor vain, So Arnold scoffed in wicked sport To hear the warlock crew's report, Because he thought New England's knight Had surely fought his final fight.

But Arnold was a soul of power Who might not waste a golden hour In counting chickens yet unhatched, Or scalping foemen not despatched.

At once he launched his wizard swarm To seek the dervish fiends of storm, And bid them maul that daring yawl With crashing wave and hissing squall.

Eftsoon the ocean imps collected And wrought as Arnold's trolls directed, On windy circles fiercely wheeling, Forever tow'rd the centre stealing, Arousing, lifting, driving ocean In clashing bursts of mad commotion, A screaming whirl of monstrous revels, The cyclone-dance, the dance of devils.

IX

It was as though a second birth Of demonkind had come on earth, Such mongrel, goblin clamors rose, Such roar of ragings, wail of woes: Insane blasphemings, madder prayers; Infernal paeans, fierce despairs; Derisive laughters, bacchant yells; Exultings of triumphant hells; Defiances of crests to crests; Appeals for mercy, hoarse behests; Laments of monstrous agonies; Huzzas of vast debaucheries; Refrains that ever seemed to weep; Responsive snarls of Titan sleep; Mad dialogues of surge with surge, Half heard athwart a booming dirge;

Extatic bellows from abysses, Commixed with groaning; snaky hisses; Discordant babblings; senseless bleats Of griffins; hoots of crazed afreets; Mysterious sentences, half spoken; Weird oracles in accents broken; A Cosmos shouting without thought; Replies of Chaos, meaning naught; The brutish language of the great Sea-furies inarticulate; The strivings of the Deep to reach Some anthropoid, or devilish speech.

X

But, wild as that alarum was, The sight surpassed; without a pause The tempest-imps tore ocean's face To flying tatters frail as lace; Like hounds they leaped upon their prey And scattered it in clots of spray. The billows reeled before their wrath; The surges cringed; the cyclone's path Was over dinted helms of waves That stooped away like beaten slaves; It hurled them tumbling, groveling, prone; It trampled them; it reigned alone.

The ocean's visage altered; spells, Mutations, marvels, miracles Succeeded swift; at every glance It changed its awful countenance. No breaker wallowed there but bore

Marmorean streaks and dapplings hoar, With whirlpools twirling up and down From yeasty base to feathery crown; While fierce explosions, far below, Uplifted floods of indigo, One moment glassy, dark and cool As any forest-bowered pool; Then swiftly folded, wrinkled, curled, And gone forever from the world.

But mainly all was sheeted white. The azure quailed; a dazzling flight And flood of lather oversloughed The billows with a ghastly shroud; And underneath the pallor rolled Insensate monsters manifold; Though, scarcely dead, they rose apace And trampled out their breathless race. Anear, or yonder, drove serene, Resplendant slopes of crystal green, That seemed as hard as mountain-pent, But ere another glance were rent To utter froth, and then again Arose and speeded o'er the main.

Tiara'd breakers glinted by, Like charging Titans; then a cry, A snarling, hissing, strangled breath Of agony, announced their death. But ere they vanished, others stood Above them; that Antaean brood Renewed from every fall the strife; A ceaseless death fed ceaseless life.

XI

Man seemed an atom here. His power To nothing turned in ocean's hour Of wrath and rule. That slender bark, Of late so like a skimming lark, Was soon a mastless, drifting wreck And barely showed its writhing deck Above the flaked and sheeted spume, That flashed like Death's eternal plume.

It struggled not; its strength was done; It had the fainting lurch of one Who reels through lines of smiting foes Half conscious of their jeers and blows. The billows, watchful, swift of spring, Pursued with hate this helpless thing, Attending it as painted braves Hunt bleeding prisoners to graves.

Titanic sea-gods jostled it; Demonic, scoffing muzzles spit Against it ere they hurtled past; Unshapely, wallowing monsters massed Their quivering bulks to overturn; Above the prow, above the stern, Chimaeras, dropping clots of foam Gnashed threat'nings; watery imp and gnome Waved hatred while they struggled by From hither to the further sky; In all the reeling, howling flight No pity sounded; naught but spite.

XII

So morning went, and afternoon,And night withouten star or moon; So likewise all the morrow passed, 'Mid hissing spray and screaming blast.

But when a second sunset fired Its western altar, greatly tired The wind-enchanters seemed to be, And smoothness slid along the sea, The rushing, rocking, toppling peaks, The watery snarls, the windy shrieks, The cyclop anarchy of ocean Subsided, failed in voice and motion, Till mellow twilight's dwindling bounds Revealed but rounded azure mounds, Atlantic prairies rolling wide Their gleamy downs through eventide.

And now our castaways might sleep, As men have slumbered on the deep Who knew not whether morning's light Awaited them, or endless night. They slept, but not without a word Of prayer from Esther; was it heard? Perchance, for when she oped her eyes She lived and saw the blessed skies. The night had vanished; morning shone; Her father lived; she heard his tone, And marveled why he talked alone.

Again she would have drowsed away, But presently she heard him say,

Disjointed words of marveling, As one who spies a wondrous thing. In Yankee dialect he spake, And thus she heard him, half awake.

"Am I alive, or dead as Cyrus? Is that a ship of ancient Tyrus? Or have the Hindoos took a notion To scoot in temples round the ocean?"

XIII

She leaped a-foot; she reached his side; She glanced along the kindling tide; And there, beneath the gracious dawn That draped the east with rosy lawn, She saw a weirder spectacle Than ever wizard wrought by spell. Did necromancy rule the deep? Had cycles vanished with her sleep? Had future centuries arisen, Or aeons dead escaped their prison? Was time a chaos? Were the ages Commixed like haply gathered pages?

A furlong off, beneath the lea, Slow-heaving o'er the heaving sea, Advanced beneath the orient blaze A galleon of ancient days; A vessel such as Holland hands Outfitted when Columbian lands Were leafy wilds where beasts and men Held daily strife for food and den;

A craft like those ye now behold In tapestries bedimmed with mould, Or tomes that tell of customs dead, Or vagrom dreams of painter's head. Yet, while so fabulous in guise, She lumbered there to mortal eyes As real a ship as ever tacked, A solid bulk, an oaken fact.

XIV

Yea more; she seemed a ship of might; Her tops were turrets, pierced for fight; Her stem and stern like castles towered; Along her bulwark cannon lowered; While cutlass, pike and arquebuse Were ranged amidst for boarding use. Her folk were many; all along The forward railing leaned a throng Of mariners; and others bowed From dizzy top and yard and shroud; All gazing gravely on the wreck With settled face and craning neck, The stoniest crew of men that e'er Did stare athwart an earthly mere. And every speechless gazer bore Such garb as Holland used of yore; Broad-leaféd hats with pointed peaks, High-colored doublets, ample breeks, With shoulder-piece, or morion, Or breastplate glinting back the sun;

All quaint as maskers at a ball, Or mummers ruffed for carnival, Or waxen mannikins that show The raimentings of long ago.

Yet these were but a common brood. Upon the quarter-castle stood A group of three, in velvet clad, Who nodded ostrich plumes, and had A noble port of haught command, Like lordly men of knightly land. Of these the tallest lifted head, And skyward gazed as though he said A word of thankfulness or prayer; Then, turning tow'rd our Yankee pair, Extended hand, and mutely gave Assurance that he came to save.

XV

Thereon did puzzled Downing stammer His wonderment in Shiloh grammar.

"May I be tomahawked," he blurted, "If Satan's kingdom aint converted! I've often heerd of hell a-floatin', An' didn't bleeve in no sich boatin'; But here it comes as plain as blazes, A-sayin' prayers an' singin' praises. For either Downing's lost his reason, An' needs confinement for a season, Or we behold that fiendish notion, The Flyin' Dutchman — plague of ocean —

Who allays keeps a-sailin'-sailin', To pick the puss of trade an' whalin.

"But now, it seems, his will an' inwards Incline no longer, hell-an-sinwards, If one can jedge a feller's goin' By pleasant ways an' pious showin'. So let us hope the spangled creetur Will pitch his hymn to shortish metre An' launch his wherry hurry-scurry To snake us out of wet an' worry. If not, I doubt his whole profession An' count him nawthin' but a Hessian, For gospel talk withouten kindness Is ruther wuss than pagan blindness An' fetches neither scrapes nor thankys From native-born, enlightened Yankees."

XVI

Erelong a jollyboat was lowered Beneath the stranger's quarterboard, A portly craft of heavy jowl, Exceeding like the famous bowl Wherein the trustful Gotham sages Went grandly down to future ages.

Next Downing spied four sailors glide Aslant the galleon's bellied side, And after them the lordly chief Who lately signalled him relief; Then saw them feather oars and urge Their rolling shallop o'er the surge

Until it smote his sunken rail, No ghostly bark of vapors pale, But stiff with oak and clinker mail.

No phantoms, either, were the rowers, But stalwart as their ashen oars; And he who bore the ostrich plume Had surely never known the tomb; For, leaping to the wreck, he strode With sounding steps in mortal mode.

A man he was, in blood and bone; A very man, right nobly grown; His visage flushed with younker health; His glances azure; while a wealth Of curling sunshine overhung His ivory brow and signed him young.

XVII

A man he truly seemed; and yet Some awful variance was set Betwixt this man and other men, The gladsome folk we daily ken. You might have fancied him a soul From distant stellar realms of dole Who never happed before on earth, Nor heard of Bethlem's wondrous birth; For utter sorrow brimmed his eyes And choked his breath with many sighs, As though he knew the wrath to come, But knew not how to fly therefrom.

Moreover, man is rarely seen So strangely meek in act and mien; For, baring solemnly his head, He knelt and humbly pressed his red And comely mouth against the deck; And many times he kissed the wreck With choking sobs and whisperings Of incommunicable things; As one who, chancing on the spot, Where erst he aimed a mortal shot, May kneel above the hidden corse In sudden pang of hot remorse, And swear repentance there of crime And holier life for coming time.

At last he rose with calmer face, As though a messenger of grace Had swiftly flown from mercy's throne With pardoning answer to his moan. Then, turning tow'rd our castaways, Who stared the while in dumb amaze, He bent his lips to Esther's wrist, Then likewise kist her father's fist, The meekest wight that ever laid A kiss on hand of man or maid.

XVIII

Such courtesy did much surprise A Downing reared in rustic guise. He never saw the like before, Nor heard thereof in days of yore.

So, partly awed, yet more perplexed And ill at ease, and therefore vexed, He glumly said, "My christian brother, Your meaning's dark, an' seems to me. We'd sooner understand each other If we should let the bussing be. Dessay there's fun in scrapes an' kisses To them that's broughten up to pass Their extry hours, like city misses, A-smirkin 'fore a lookin-glass. But Goodness didn't light our tapers In deestricks given to monkey-capers, An' we admire these fancy manners As much as Satan does hosanners. "So, waivin' furder bows an' curchies, Explain with no uncertain sound Whether your ark a fort or church is An' what you mean by droppin' round. But while you're thinkin' up your answer I'll briefly state that I'm a man, sir, Disposed to be almighty tender About the p'int of no-surrender."

XIX

The stranger started, not in spite, But marvel mixed with sharp delight, Like one who wins a pard'ning word Instead of mortal thrust incurred.

Then, taking Downing's hand, he said, "I trow that thou art English bred.

Thank God that I may hear agen The blessid speech of living men! Thank God that men without a curse May welcome me, so long perverse, The slave of sin for many a year, The haunting fiend of many a mere!"

This utterance of gladness rung In syllables of English tongue, But English other than we know, A mother-speech of yore-ago. The tones were sweet. But strangely old They seemed, as though the funeral mould Of centuries had gathered round The words. They had a ghostly sound That brought to mind the eldfitch lay And requiem of ivies gray, Lamenting o'er a riven keep Whose knights are dust, whose bugles sleep.

At first the sense was dimly marked; But presently, as Downing harked And fiercely strove to comprehend, He saw a beam of meaning wend Its way along the words; and soon The purport sparkled clear as noon; Although the wight who understood Deemed it patter of alien brood; Nor guessed that thus his fathers spake, Nor quite believed himself awake.

As one can hear discourse in sleep That moveth him to curse and weep, Yet cannot answer, though he sighs

And grimaces to mouth replies, So Downing heard his fearful guest With palsied tongue and heaving breast; And when the Flying Dutchman bade Our Yankees follow, they obeyed And eftersoon set foot upon That ever-cruising galleon, The weirdest visit, I opine, That ever was on turf or brine.

XX

Our chief, in column after column Of what he calls his Seckont Vollum, Relates such brags anent this galley That skeptic spirits dare to rally The wonder-tale as merely fable, A crumb purloined from Arthur's Table. But Downing's self and Downing's labors Are testified by trusty neighbors, By men who sate in deacon's places, Distinguished for their gifts and graces, Their scholarship in orthodoxies And zeal with contribution boxes; And we, who take their witness kindly, Believe his blague and quote it blindly.

"She was," he writes, "the queerest notion That ever wabbled round the ocean; The awkardest sea-goin' creetur Sence Pharaoh an' Simon Peter. The stern an' fokesle histed uppards

Consid'able like mons'ous cuppards, In consequence of which her figger Was like a crescent moon, though bigger. She kerried every kind of wep'm That Granther Noah took as kep'm, From Tubal Cain's harpoons an' hammers To muskets made by Amsterdammers, With cannons built of wroughten metal No thicker than a potash kettle, A sight more suitable for bustin' Than givin enemies a dustin'."

XXI

"But sartinly the strangest show Aboard was officers an' sailors, A gang of younkers all aglow, But dressed by dead an' buried tailors. They had a far-off, hopeful gaze, Reminding me of Eden's glory, Or, ruther more, of pious ways That lead to Heaven's upper story; Besides, they had a gentle sadness, A-glimpsin' through a trustin' gladness, A gleam of meek an' patient graces We often see on corpses' faces; By which, though not a holy liver, I found it easy to diskiver The creeturs were in great affliction An' labored under deep conviction, Yet entertained a hope to die on The steep an' narrow road to Zion.

"Well, trompin' on the skipper's shadder, We ambled down the cabin ladder An' found a gorgis-lookin' chimber, All carpentered in whittled timber, A dozen paces square by measure An' bilin' over fell of treasure; For instance, cuppards, chists an' tables Of ivory an' fragrant lumbers, As fine as dreams in schoolboy slumbers, Or what we hear about in fables; With trinkets thick as Jews in Numbers, — Tyaries, bracelets, silver flagons, Gold-mounted gods an' jeweled dragons.

XXII

"An' right among the raree-shows, Two youngling men an' one young woman, (Arrayed in go-to-meetin' close), So hansome they were skussly human; The Flyin' Dutchman's near relations, Who shooken hands an' offered cheers With such a buzz of salutations As ruther stumped our Yankee ears.

The christenins were Dutch to me, An' drefful tough to spell, I reckon. The skipper interduced; says he, 'My name is Hendrick Vanderdecken; My cousins are these other two; The first is Dircksen Vanderdryfe; The other, Arendt Vanderloo,

And this, Cornelie, is his wifey.' — Or so I understood the titles, Although, perhaps, I've missed the spellin'; For Dutch is spoken from the vitals An' hard to write beyond all tellin.'"

XXIII

Thus Downing found himself the guest Of ocean's wanderer and pest, The fated guide of murderous waves, The haunting ghoul of coraled graves.

High dialogue the strangers held, As suited men of hoary eld. Of that ennobled age they spoke When all Iberia's empire broke In floods of steel on Holland's shore, And backward rolled, a flood of gore; When Orange cheered the slender band That stood for freedom, faith and land, And cumbered breach and field and seaWith dead who left their country free, When martyred cities, clothed in fire, Saw victory's crown above the pyre; And vain was Parma's wondrous art, And vainly burst Don Juan's heart.

For long our hero speechless heard, With mouth agape like youngling bird, Debating how such lordly names And gallant deeds and shining fames Could be no less unknown to him

Than things beyond creation's brim. At last he stammered, musing much, "I reckon those were ancient Dutch; An' though I'm but a middlin' schollard In history, I think I know, For sartin sure, the graveyard swaller'd Their strength an' glory long ago; For Holland's sign come down a story When Britain took to keepin' tavern,* 1.2 An' Spain has got as weak an' hoary As giant Pope in Bunyan's cavern. So, on the whole an' 'barrin' errors, I ruther guess those famous coots Charged bagnets on the king of terrors An' died, like sojers, in their boots."

XXIV

Then golden-haired Cornelie cried, "Alas! it may be all have died. But all? Do all my kinsmen sleep? The little ones who scarce could creep? My brother with the flaxen head? How may it be that all are dead?"

Then Esther, witnessing her grief, And knowing naught could bring relief, Inclined her brow and sobbed aloud, While valiant Downing also bowed To hide the burning drops that ran

Adown his cheek of rugged tan. For, stalwart though he was, and grim To hardnesses that touched but him, He might not spy distress anear Nor see his daughter shed a tear, But sympathy would smite him through, And he would weep, as angels do.

Meanwhile the others held askance With folded arms and lowered glance, Unflinching shapes of calm despair, Without a tear, without a prayer, As kenning well that no lament Nor plea would ease their punishment.

But shortly Vanderdecken gave This comment, "Welcome be the grave!"

Then Vanderloo besought: "My own, My sweet Cornelie, cease thy moan! Thy kin have bowed to God's decree; Long since they crossed the Shining Sea. Gone are the children, like their games; Forgot, perchance, their very names. Yet, dearest one, take heart of grace, For they will meet us face to face, Will meet and greet us when our feet Find rest before the mercy-seat."

XXV

"Yea," Vanderdecken sighed. "We know The truth, at last. And be it so!"

Then, turning to his guests, he said, "Two hundred stormy years have sped

About this world of weary wail Since we loosened the homeward sail; Yet still we plough a shoreless foam, And still we cannot find our home. Ye marvel such a thing can be. But hearken! listen! hear! and ye Shall know how God can discipline, How swift his anger follows sin.

I was distract with love of gold, And like Iscariot I sold My peace, my happiness, myself, My fellow men, my God, for pelf. I was distract for it because It makes and shatters human laws; Because it gives one lordly place And lordly power among his race; Because it makes one like a king. Wherever shone the eldritch thing I hasted there with deadly sword, Or deadlier guile, to swell my hoard, Nor cared though tears and blood bestained The sheen of every sequin gained.

But oftentimes, from year to year, Unearthly whispers reached my ear, Fell tenderly through starlit calms, Or noontides breathing spice and balms, Slid weirdly over burnished seas, Where nothing was, nor ship nor breeze, So weirdly came, so weirdly fled, I looked to see the misty dead. And what the whisper sighed was this:

'Thou sellest thine eternal bliss; Erelong wilt thou be called again To choose betwixt thy God and gain; Then, turning still from ways of worth, Thy doom shall wonderstrike the earth.'

XXVI

"Yet none the less — O heart of flint! I gathered gold withouten stint, Nor paused amid my vampyre chase, Nor ceased to scorn the heavenly grace, And like myself I made the men Who share my fortune now as then.

This galley freighted we with groans And bloody tears of Indian zones, Transformed by cruelty and lies To jewels, gold and merchandise. Then, hoping greater gain if we Might quickly overspan the sea, I swore that neither love, nor fear, Nor law divine, nor human tear Should make me slacken sail or veer In all my voyage. Demon oath! Fulfilled with more than demon troth, And punished by the watchful power Of Him who knows the sparrow's hour.

Upon the hundreth prosperous day We bellied swift along our way, Dividing Holland seas at last And vaunting over perils past;

Upon that gracious day, as morn Shook over earth her golden horn, Enriching all the east with skies That fitter seemed for Paradise; Upon that gracious morn we spied, A furlong from our hissing side, A wreck that wallowed deadly deep, Whereon a castaway did weep And wring his hands athwart the wave, Beseeching us to pause and save.

XXVII

"Cornelie, then, my cousin's wife, Made intercession for that life With such a piercing woman-wail That all who harkened turned a-pale And stared askant with sullen brow, And muttered, 'Will he break the vow?' For every heart was hard with greed To win the promised gain of speed.

Ah, maddened soul! I said her Nay, And briskly foamed along my way, While swifter still that vessel span And flyted from the sight of man, Although I know not how it fled, If underneath or overhead; For where it span a wondrous light Of dazzling pinions dimmed the sight, And when the glory skyward shone The mere was clear and we alone.

The deed was done, my sin complete, And vengeance came on speedy feet; For scarcely could I turn to gaze Along the prow for landward haze Before a flying 'larum passed That cried above our tallest mast: 'Behold, O waves, behold these men, And hold them till I come agen!'

Then wept Cornelie, 'We are lost, For that was Jesus tempest-tost, And thou deniedst him, and we Are dungeoned in a gateless sea.'

Had any man such omen spoke, I would have dealt him mortal stroke, So arrogant was I in mind, And sudden fierce to humankind. Yet soothfully had she divined Our crowning sin and coming woe. Alas! as often haps below, The innocent was doomed to share Sin's punishment and sin's despair.

XXVIII

"The malediction hath not failed, For, since it larumed, we have sailed — O Jesus! how we sail thy seas To win a port that ever flees, To win the land that gave us birth; Yea, that or any alien earth!

How often hath our galley spanned A world where many cities stand; Where gladsome creatures throng the ways And thankful belfries call to praise; Where flowrets bloom and branches swing And insects hum and birdlets sing; Where even brutes tread fragrant turf And lusty shores withstand the surf; How often round such pleasant world, How woful often have we whirled, And found it but a howling nest Of demon waves that never rest!

All earthly forms, all coastwise shapes, The haughty cliffs, the prowling capes, The very mountains huge and hoar That sentried otherwhiles the shore, And beckoned us from zone to zone, Have vanished into graves unknown. Yea, fiery isles that sunward rolled Their solemn smokings, fold on fold, Like giants burning sacrifice And waving incense tow'rd the skies; Or, seen through oceanic night, Now panted breaths of filmy light, Now held a lurid shaft aloft Whose chapter reached the starry croft; These, too, have flyted from their posts As utterly as shriven ghosts.

The elfin picture-lands that slide From beetling cliff or mountain side Deep into gulfs of liquid steel;

And, smiling far below the keel, Bewitch the sailor with their guiles Until he sees hesperian isles Of verdant grove and sunny knoll, And hears their belfries call his soul; E'en these enchantments of the deep, These wizard dreams of ocean's sleep, We sought with care through many seas, And found them not — not even these!

XXIX

"No frothing jowl of wolfish main But we have fronted it in vain. No shouting surge, no snarling bar, Will fling the gates of death ajar. No bloody haunt of pagan men, No pirate's lair, no monster's den, Will suffer us to draw anigh, And hail its cruelty, and die. No land we meet — no land — no land! No, not the humblest beach of sand. No matter how we span its girth, We cannot find the winsome earth, Nor aught but ocean's heaving graves, An endless charnelhouse of waves. Oh, what a hell the deep may be! There is no horror like the sea..

Time also vanished, like the shore; Omniscient Time knew us no more. We wrote in books the dreary days

Till record stopped in stark amaze. How might we credit such a thing! The months advanced on tireless wing; The years, the lustres, filled their lot; We reckoned them, believing not. We numbered, numbered, numbered oft, Nor yet believed, but rather scoffed; Denying that our woful breath Was overdue to cheated death; Denying that the friends we sought, The foes we dreaded, all were nought.

XXX

"Another horror! We were doomed To gaze upon the wrecks that boomed And signalled vainly for relief. Wherever tore the ambushed reef, Wherever gorged the stealthy shark, Wherever lurched a riven bark, We hasted, spite of helm and sails, And endless wrath of heady gales. No idle prayers, no hopeless sighs, No last despairs, no bubbling cries, Of ocean folk beneath the skies, But there we ride, we ever ben Beholders curst of living men.

No rest! no calm! Forever bruised By fronting storms, our galley cruised Through tropic blaze and polar cold, Through mighty meres, unguessed of old,

From foaming waste to foaming waste With headlong, blinding, madding haste, Only to witness everywhere Incessant woe and wild despair.

XXXI

"Two hundred years we fared alone. Two hundred years my heart was stone, So wicked hard I would not deign To utter moan, nor even feign Desire to holpen shipwrecked soul.

But yestereve, outworn with dole, And yearning once again to walk About my childhood's home, and talk With men of hopeful, gladsome heart, I called my kinsmen here apart, Bemoaned my sin and prayed for grace With weeping that from face to face Ran burning hot and swelled apace Till even rugged marineers, Who heard us, melted into tears.

Then once again returned the low Unearthly sigh of yore-ago, No longer breathing threat and moan, But loving sweet in word and tone. It fell, I thought, from starry choirs, And yet it frighted not the ear; It had a sound of golden lyres, And yet it whispered silver clear; It seemed to bid me bend the knee,

And yet it gently breathed to me This word, as sweet as word can be:

'To-morrow morning shalt thou find A work befitting humbled mind; Have mercy on thy fellow men, And enter into peace agen.'"

XXXII

Such was the Ocean Vagrant's tale, A story like some ghostly wail From awful torture-chambers, built By mighty wrath for wondrous guilt, Where yet a little hope remains And struggling pinions shake the chains. And when he ended it, a groan Fulfilled the ponderous galleon, As though the very ship did feel Remorse from topmast down to keel.

Meanwhile that company of four, The seekers after Holland shore, Nor paled to hear, nor looked around, As though it were familiar sound; But harkened dumb, with drooping eyes And humid cheeks and gentle sighs, And shaking lips that prayed within, Beseeching grace for stubborn sin: The saddest human souls, I trow, The wildest, weirdest in their woe, That ever ploughed the rounded sea, Or ever bowed the contrite knee.

XXXIII

Our hero, witnessing their sorrow, Was moved to uttermost compassion, And, judging their repentance thorough, At once began in sequent fashion To hum and haw such comfortings As suited best his own emotion, Without much questioning if things Would work according to his notion.

"No doubt," he granted, "sin is awful, An' your career has been unlawful. You've kinder been ambition-bitten, A leetle like old mother Britain, An' wrought no eend of peccadilloes In tearin' round to rule the billows. I must allow you've raised a rumpus About as big as chaps can compass. You've mowed a mons'ous swath of trouble, An' trampled feller men like stubble, An' made your guilt appear the greater By stickin' at it like all nater.

But change of heart an' change of goin' Are also wuth a moment's showin'. You've turned your back on lyin' Baalam An' aimed your figger-head for Salem; You've saved at least two feller mortals From slippin' through the ghostly portals; An' sence I've been a Yankee stormer I never met a Dutch Reformer Who seemed in penitence more hearty

Than you, includin' all your party, From whence I draw a smart assurance You've reely broke from Satan's durance To seek a berth among the chosen, With all aboard, from cook to boasun.

XXXIV

"Besides, I find a hopeful smatter Of palliation in the matter. Your past has kinder been your master In sin as well as in disaster. It grabbed you at the first beginnin', Before you squarely thought of sinnin', An' when it fairly got you under, It dragged you down to blood an' plunder, An' through a sort of necromancy, That wasn't strictly to your fancy, It made you grind a grist of evil, For which I mainly blame the deevle.

In short, you've been predestinated To walk the very road you hated; An' therefore I should say for sartin The surest way to do your cartin An' find the marciful pertection Would be the doctrine of election. Election is Apollyon's horror; It brimstones hell like old Gomorror, An' raises scalds on Gog an' Magog As broad acrost as Lake Umbagog, An' scorches every imp to cinder Who tries to chuck it out o' winder.

That doggamy is your reliance; Astride of that you'll bid defiance To terrors, doubts an' suchlike temptins'; An' when creation runs to emptins' When all the tribes of men an' sperrits Are jedged accordin' to their merits, You'll see yourselves as high as any, If Downing's word is worth a penny.

XXXV

"After your rough an tough probation No doubt you'll find a consolation In makin' sech a hahnsome showin' While shootin' stars an trumpets blowin' Reveal to every kind of Hessians The emptiness of mere perfessions Without a sure an' solid standin' Upon the creed of Plymouth Landin'.

In that arousin' day the sinners Won't keer for drinks before their dinners; In vain they'll talk of keerds an' smokin', An' try to brave it out by jokin'; They'll soon begin to want a shelter An' start for cover helter-skelter. With graves ajar beneath their noses An' saints a-shinin' round like Moses, How they will jump an' dodge an' travel To keep from slumpin' under gravel,An scoot acrost lots limber-jintedWhichever way their snoots are pinted,

But tucker out at last, an' foller Apollyon down to Brimstone Holler!* 1.3

But you, the children of election, Ordained to keep the right direction, Or only sidlin' out by seasons For practical an' pressin' reasons (As granthers, when the way is stony, Take medder paths, to spare the pony) You, knowin' well your sartin callin', Won't mind to see the skies a-fallin'; You'll stand around as stiff as steeples, An' mayhap jedge some casyal peoples."

XXXVI

To suchlike cheering talk our chief Did treat these patient sons of grief, Whereof he babbled knowing little, But holding every jot and tittle; For while he never once debated But Hell would swallow those he hated, He thought that whoso roused his pity Would smoothly reach the golden city; And doubtless he foreshadowed certain Exhorters now before the curtain, Who, whether orthodox or arian, Are certainly humanitarian.

Yet being practical in mind, And by orig'nal sin inclined To spice his theologic quirks With Satan's sauce of goodly works; As, also, bearing great affection To martial modes of intellection (For instance, loving much to pour His views along a rifle's bore) He shortly ceased to prate about The topics fate has wrapped in doubt, And begged his hosts to take in hand The alien swarms who plagued our land.

With fervent Yankee zeal he prayed The Flying Hollanders to raid Britannic Majesty's possessions; Or, failing this, to mount the Hessians And sink the wizard fleets that drewTheir legions over Neptune's blue; Or, missing these, to make a run In search of Freedom's setting sun And garb our needy continentals In mediaeval regimentals.

Ah, moment lost! If Downing might Have won these ancient men to fight, Brittania's unicorn had sunk Beneath their veteran skill and spunk.

XXXVII

Betimes our worthy chieftain strolled In wonder through the rover's hold, Surveying riches manifold:

A spoil of Afric shells and whorls; Embroidered bags of Persian pearls; Cathayan pipes with ivory stems; Arabian falchions sheathed in gems; The glossy bars of an argent mine, And caskets brimmed with brilliants fine; A hundred leathern sacks, or more, Of gold in sequins, gold in ore; Sandal coffers of Indian shawls; Ebony thrones from Java's halls; Opulent bales of silver braid And sheeny silk and stiff brocade; The spice and gums and healing balms Of sunny islands clothed in palms; While aloes, frankincense and cloves Exhaled a steam of tropic groves.

All these he saw and coveted. For Downing? No! No miser he! He sued for starving ranks that bled In shoonless feet beyond the sea. Yea, high and noble were his longings To raise a loan on these belongings, And pay our troops in money minted, Instead of money merely printed.

But no! The Wanderer of Time Had done with battle's flame and grime. In vain might glory's trumpet sound; He answered, "I am homeward bound," And, speaking thus, would calmly raise His brow with such a far-off gaze

As often glorifies the eye Of mortal who is near to die.

Moreover, Downing's child began To love this sorrow-hunted man, As angels love a mourning soul; So tender-swift to spare him dole That ever, when her sire might dare Renew his plea for martial ware She checked his zeal with silent prayer; She hushed him, though he never heard From those seraphic lips a word.

So, onward over shining seas, Without a sail, against the breeze, The lonely, wizard vessel flew, No longer thrust before a crew Of tempest-fiends, but gently pressed From hailing crest to hailing crest By loving wings unseen of men. The very galleon seemed to ken That now at last she neared her home And presently might cease to roam; For all about her prow she sang, And carols round her rudder rang, And every rope had tuneful lips; She was the joyfullest of ships That ever ploughed a gladsome wave, Although she flew to find a grave.

XXXVIII

The morning came, the last of moil For those who sought their natal soil; And, through the filmy wraiths that drave In shoals from steely wave to wave, They sighted Holland's seaward bounds, Her endless dikes, her misty sounds; And stealing on from shape to shape, By yawning bight and crawling cape, Anon they plainly spied afar A tangled wood of mast and spar, Displaying flags of all mankind, With roofs in thousands ranked behind. While here and yonder lofty spires Uplifted psalms from brazen lyres, Carilloning o'er earth and sea That queenly city's jubilee.

And this was Amsterdam. Her sails Were all around them. Marvelling hails Pursued and met these otherworld Vikings veering with canvas furled And flaunting flags of ages gone. They answered not; they speeded on, All landward gazing; every eye Intent with yearning hope to spy A shape familiar to its gaze, — A ghost, at least, of other days; Intent perchance to find a spot Where lasting quiet might be got, The peace that man nor cyclone stirs The restful peace of sepulchres.

XXXIX

But nearing now their longed for goal, A ghostly transformation stole Athwart these searchers after land. A mighty spell, a spectral hand, Perchance the fume of earthly airs, Unbraced the kindly, tender snares Of miracle that held them young; And all the bygone years that hung Above them fluttered down; and they Were smitten wrinkled, bent and grey.

A froth of silver overrolled The captain's wealth of curling gold, And furrows crept adown his cheek, And palsy made his stoutness meek. The rounded grace and rosebud hue Of fair Cornelie Vanderloo Fell tremulous and white and spare As lated stars in morning's glare. From breath to breath the awful change Increased in might, took wider range, Pervaded spirit, blood and bone, And swiftly laid the strongest prone.

Erelong the leader stood alone, With agèd head in meekness bent, And prayed, "Receive us! we repent." One moment stood with lifted face; One moment claimed the Heavenly grace; Then sate, nor quitted more his place. Cornelie, now a withered dame,

Embraced with tears the shrunken frame Of him whose fated nuptial band For ages gemmed her living hand, Both bowing heads of silver hair And moving ashen lips in prayer.

The greybeard sailors, ghostly pale And shaking, leaned against the rail, Or feebly fumbled tools of rust And cordage crumbling into dust. For all the galleon was fraught With swift decadence into naught; The sails were dropping mould and blight; The spars blew off in slivers white; The oaken sides and bolted deck Relaxed to flimsy, yawning wreck; Each onward fathom tow'rd the quay Wrought lustres, cycles, of decay.

XL

Then Esther Downing, weeping, cried: "O arms of mercy, open wide!" But quickly turned her piteous stare On Vanderdecken, blanching there, And watched him with the stony eye, Of one who sees her dearest die.

Her father, gazing where she signed, Beheld the fated chief reclined, As white as man already dead, His breath a sigh, his vision fled, But glad in all his patient face,

Like one who fainting wins the race; While close beside, companions still As when they followed him in ill, His kinsmen paled in mortal chill; And farther on, in groups of death, His sailors gasped away their breath; All waning into swift eclipse, Yet wearing on their pallid lips The gentle, thankful smile of those Who enter joy through gates of woes.

So much the father saw; and then He fled before those ghastly men. He caught his child within his arm And burst away in mad alarm; He crossed the sways and vanishings And dusty whirls of fading things; And, leaping ere the bulwark broke, Fell gasping-dumb 'mid living folk, A city trampling, all a-stare, To see a galleon melt in air.

XLI

The vessel followed him; it stole In silence on; it touched the mole With gentle rustle, like to moss, Or fungus sprays, or thistle floss, A sigh of ruin barely heard, Though never starer murmured word.

Arising, Downing turned to gaze, But only spied a drowsy haze

Of ashy motes and filmy scales In place of hull and masts and sails. Inert and pale it towered high; One solemn moment stained the sky; Then slowly into distance waned, And when it vanished, naught remained; The ocean-pest had ceased to roam; The voyagers had found their home. But e'en to that upstaring throng Descended grateful drifts of song, The chorusings of raptured sprites Already nearing Eden's heights; To whom replied a welcome-psalm From courts of golden crown and palm.

Then, peering downward through the tide Of verdant crystal, men espied A pulverous settling, frail as dawn, That glimmered, shuddered, and was gone. Thin waters, woven through with braid Of trembling sunbeams, overlaid The formless, stagnant residue Of one whom every tempest knew.

So endeth oft the noblest plan Of life's mysterious vagrant, Man. He struggles long with hostile waves; He triumphs, calls the winds his slaves; He hastens, thinking not to drown, And, shouting, "Land!" goes swiftly down.

XLII

Our chief in marvel raised his head, "At least it fetched us here," he said; "And that is sartinly a sign That Goodness favors our design." Thereon he rived the burgher jam And calmly entered Amsterdam. But scarcely had he bent his feet To thread a dusky, devious street, With lofty fronts on either hand, The quaintest mortal ever planned, Ere one who passed him in the fry, On tiptoe wheeled with bulging eye, And shooting forth a bony wrist, Commenced to shake his honored fist, Salaaming all the while in tone And dialect like Downing's own.

Our hero turned, in vast amaze At Yankee speech in Holland ways. He turned and saw a longlimbed man As lean and limber as rattan, With lanky hair and hollow cheek And quizzing lips and sharpened beak, Who seemed to his delighted eyes An angel sent from downcast skies. In songful drawl the stranger spake: "I ruther guess there's no mistake About your being Shiloh's lion, The chap who saved our Yankee Zion."

Then, ramming fists in trouser-pockets,

He spouted tidings bright as rockets; Rehearsing how the bird of freedom Had ripped the sawdust out of Edom And hustled every bull of Bashan Across the bounds of all creation; By which he meant our sires had smitten The hosts of Hessiandom and Britain, And won for Downing and descendants The stars and stripes of independence.

XLIII

Our hero smiled with satisfaction, But promptly turned his thoughts to action. He rang the bells, convened the city, And made a speech, a loan, a treaty; Then, striking out some Yankee notion (Unknown to us) of crossing ocean, He turned his back on plans of slaughter And journeyed home with gun and daughter.

Thus fortuned it that Shiloh's hero Reduced no Hessian states to Zero, But hammered ploughshares from his sabre And settled down to farming labor. Ah, who could trust the weird narration If Downing did not mean a nation, Our Yankee wit and brawn and bravery, Our hate of Beelzebub and slavery!

Notes

• * 1.1

  Gog and Magog.
• * 1.2

  In New England the place of taverner was formerly held by town authority, and was a position of trust and Honor.
• * 1.3

  For a similar sermon, by a Georgian camp-meeting exhorter, see the New York Independent of July 12, 1873. Diversity of time and place cannot mar the unity of genius.