Complete Works of Kenneth Grahame
Page 27
Ding, dong, bell.
Shakespeare.
Its Lawless Joys
The Old Buccaneer
Oh England is a pleasant place for them that’s rich and high,
But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I;
And such a port for mariners I ne’er shall see again
As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main.
There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and stout,
All furnished well with small arms and cannons round about;
And a thousand men in Avès made laws so fair and free
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.
Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold,
Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old;
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,
Who flog men, and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone.
O the palms grew high in Avès, and fruits that shone like gold,
And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold;
And the negro maids to Avès from bondage fast did flee,
To welcome gallant sailors, a-sweeping in from sea.
O sweet it was in Avès to hear the landward breeze,
A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees,
With a negro lass to fan you, while you listened to the roar
Of the breakers on the reef outside, that never touched the shore.
But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things must be;
So the King’s ships sailed on Avès, and quite put down were we.
All day we fought like bulldogs, but they burst the booms at night;
And I fled in a piragua, sore wounded, from the fight.
Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside,
Till, for all I tried to cheer her, the poor young thing she died;
But as I lay a-gasping, a Bristol sail came by,
And brought me home to England here, to beg until I die.
And now I’m old and going — I’m sure I can’t tell where;
One comfort is, this world’s so hard, I can’t be worse off there:
If I might but be a sea-dove, I’d fly across the main,
To the pleasant Isle of Avès, to look at it once again.
Charles Kingsley.
The Salcombe Seaman’s Flaunt to the Proud Pirate
A lofty ship from Salcombe came,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
She had golden trucks that shone like flame,
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
“Masthead, masthead,” the captains hail,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
“Look out and round, d’ye see a sail?”
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
“There’s a ship that looms like Beachy Head,”
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
“Her banner aloft it blows out red,”
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
“Oh, ship ahoy, where do you steer?”
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
“Are you man-of-war, or privateer?”
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
“I am neither one of the two,” said she,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
“I’m a pirate, looking for my fee,”
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
“I’m a jolly pirate, out for gold:”
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
“I will rummage through your after hold,”
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
The grumbling guns they flashed and roared,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
Till the pirate’s masts went overboard,
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
They fired shots till the pirate’s deck,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
Was blood and spars and broken wreck,
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
“O do not haul the red flag down,”
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
“O keep all fast until we drown,”
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
They called for cans of wine, and drank,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
They sang their songs until she sank,
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
Now let us brew good cans of flip,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
And drink a bowl to the Salcombe ship,
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
And drink a bowl to the lad of fame,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;
Who put the pirate ship to shame,
On the bonny coasts of Barbary.
From A Sailor’s Garland.
The Smuggler
O my true love’s a smuggler and sails upon the sea,
And I would I were a seaman to go along with he;
To go along with he for the satins and the wine,
And run the tubs at Slapton when the stars do shine.
O Hollands is a good drink when the nights are cold,
And Brandy is a good drink for them as grows old.
There is lights in the cliff-top when the boats are home-bound,
And we run the tubs at Slapton when the word goes round.
The King he is a proud man in his grand red coat,
But I do love a smuggler in a little fishing-boat;
For he runs the Mallins lace and he spends his money free,
And I would I were a seaman to go along with he.
From A Sailor’s Garland.
ARMS AND THE MAN
The generations pass, each in its turn wondering whether it is to be the one to see the ending of War and the awakening of the common sense of nations. But the Poetry of the glory of Battle, the hymning of high heroisms, the dirges for those who nobly died — these will remain, to gild its memory, long after the last echo of the last war-drum has faded out of the world.
The Maid
Thunder of riotous hoofs over the quaking sod;
Clash of reeking squadrons, steel-capped, iron-shod;
The White Maid and the white horse, and the flapping banner of God.
Black hearts riding for money; red hearts riding for fame;
The Maid who rides for France and the King who rides for shame —
Gentlemen, fools, and a saint riding in Christ’s high name!
“Dust to dust!” it is written. Wind-scattered are lance and bow.
Dust, the Cross of Saint George; dust, the banner of snow.
The bones of the King are crumbled, and rotted the shafts of the foe.
Forgotten, the young knight’s valour; forgotten, the captain’s skill;
Forgotten, the fear and the hate and the mailed hands raised to kill;
Forgotten, the shields that clashed and the arrows that cried so shrill.
Like a story from some old book, that battle of long ago:
Shadows, the poor French King and the might of his English foe;
Shadows, the charging nobles and the archers kneeling a-row —
But a flame in my heart and my eyes, the Maid with her banner of snow!
Theodore Roberts.
The Eve of Waterloo
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it? — No; ’t
was but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
But hark! — that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! Arm! it is — it is — the cannon’s opening roar!
Within a window’d niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound, the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deem’d it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier,
And rous’d the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush’d into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated: who would guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Rous’d up the soldier ere the morning star;
While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering with white lips— “The foe! they come! they come!”
And wild and high the “Camerons’ gathering” rose,
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave, — alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day
Battle’s magnificently stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent
The earth is cover’d thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heap’d and pent,
Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent!
Lord Byron.
The Glory that was Greece
I include this among the War Poems, because it is a call to a conquered nation to rise in arms against their oppressors — a call that was in due course answered.
The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse:
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And, musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persian’s grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships by thousands lay below,
And men in nations; — all were his!
He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set, where were they?
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now,
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
’Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among the fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear!
Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!
What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no: the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
And answer, “Let one living head,
But one arise, — we come, we come!”
’Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain — in vain; strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold Bacchanal!
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave;
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
He served — but served Polycrates:
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
That tyrant was Miltiades!
Oh that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli’s rock and Parga’s shore
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks —
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords and native ranks
The only hope of courage dwells:
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.
F
ill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade —
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But, gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine —
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
Lord Byron.
Battle Hymn of the American Republic
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his Judgment Seat;
O, be swift, my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Julia Ward Howe.
To Lucasta, on going to the Wars
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.
Richard Lovelace.
The Black Prince
O for the voice of that wild horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,