# Dauber

I Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck, All work aboard was over for the hour, And some men sang and others played at check, Or mended clothes or watched the sunset glower. The bursting west was like an opening flower, And one man watched it till the light was dim, But no one went across to talk to him.
He was the painter in that swift ship's crew, Lampman and painter-tall, a slight-built man, Young for his years, and not yet twenty-two; Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan. Bullied and damned at since the voyage began, "Being neither man nor seaman by his tally," He bunked with the idlers just abaft the galley.
His work began at five; he worked all day, Keeping no watch and having all night in. His work was what the mate might care to say; He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin; His dungarees were smeared with paraffin. "Go drown himself" his round-house mates advised him, And all hands called him "Dauber" and despised him.
Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar, Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side, Slushing his hands to get away the tar, And then he washed himself and rinsed and dried; Towelling his face,, hair-towzelled, eager eyed, He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there stood Watching the gold of heaven turn to blood.
They stood there by the rail while the swift ship Tore on out of the tropics, straining her sheets, Whitening her trackway to a milky strip, Dim with green bubbles and twisted water meets, Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and cleats, Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts leaned: They watched how the seas struck and burst and greened.
Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side. "Why did you come to sea, painter?" he said. "I want to be a painter," he replied, "And know the sea and ships from A to Z, And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead; Ships under skysails running down the Trade Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer made.
"But there's so much to learn, with sails and ropes, And how the sails look, full or being furled, And how the lights change in the troughs and slopes, And the sea's colours up and down the world, And how a storm looks when the sprays are hurled High as the yard (they say) I want to see; There's none ashore can teach such things to me.
"And then the men and rigging, and the way Ships move, running or beating, and the poise At the roll's end, the checking in the sway, I want to paint them perfect, short of the noise; And then the life, the half-decks full of boys, The fo'c's'les with the men there, dripping wet: I know the subjects that I want to get.
"It's not been done, the sea, not yet been done, From the inside, by one who really knows; I'd give up all if I could be the one, But art comes dear the way the money goes. So I have come to sea, and I suppose Three years will teach me all I want to learn And make enough to keep me till I earn."
Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved, Drawing the leap of water off the side Where the great clipper trampled iron-hooved, Making the blue hills of the sea divide, Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride, And leaping on full tilt with all sails drawing, Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, pawing.
"I cannot get it yet-not yet," he said; "That leap and light, and sudden change to green, And all the glittering from the sunset's red, And the milky colours where the bursts have been, And then the clipper striding like a queen Over it all, all beauty to the crown. I see it all, I cannot put it down.
"It's hard not to be able. There, look there! I cannot get the movement nor the light; Sometimes it almost makes a man despair To try and try and never get it right. Oh, if I could-oh, if I only might, I wouldn't mind what hells I'd have to pass, Not if the whole world called me fool and ass.
Down sank the crimson sun into the sea, The wind cut chill at once, the west grew dun. "Out sidelights!" called the mate. "Hi, where is he?" The Boatswain called, "Out sidelights, damn you! Run!" "He's always late or lazing," murmured one" The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon the tints Of red and green passed on dark waterglints.
Darker it grew, still darker, and the stars Burned golden, and the fiery fishes came. The wire-note loudened from the straining spars; The sheet-blocks clacked together always the same; The rushing fishes streaked the seas with flame, Racing the one speed noble as their own: What unknown joy was in those fish unknown!
Just by the round-house door, as it grew dark, The Boatswain caught the Dauber with, "Now, you; Till now I've spared you, damn you! now you hark: I've just had hell for what you didn't do; I'll have you broke and sent among the crew If you get me more trouble by a particle. Don't you forget, you daubing, useless article!
"You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port Mahon!" Then came the Cook's "Is that the Dauber there? Why don't you leave them stinking paints alone? They stink the house out, poisoning all the air. Just take them out." "Where to?" "I don't care where. I won't have stinking paint here." From their plates: "That's right; wet paint breeds fever," growled his mates.
He took his still wet drawings from the berth And climbed the ladder to the deck-house top; Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth, For two ship's boys were putting on the strop: One, clambering up to let the skylight drop, Saw him bend down beneath a boat and lay His drawings there, till all were hid away.
And stand there silent, leaning on the boat, Watching the constellations rise and bum, Until the beauty took him by the throat, So stately is their glittering overturn; Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn With banners rising and falling, and passing by Over the empty silence of the sky.
The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails, Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night, The high trucks traced on heaven and left no trails; The moonlight made the topsails almost white, The passing sidelight seemed to drip green light. And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright bows; He sighed, "I'll never do't," and left the house.
"Now," said the reefer, "up! Come Sam; come, Si, Dauber's been hiding something." Up they slid, Treading on naked tiptoes stealthily To grope for treasure at the long-boat skid. "Drawings!" said Sam. "Is this what Dauber hid? Lord! I expected pudding, not this rot. Still, come, we'll have some fun with what we've got."
They smeared the paint with turpentine until They could remove with mess-clouts every trace Of quick perception caught by patient skill, And lines that had brought blood into his face. They wiped the pigments off and did erase, With knives, all sticking clots, When they had done. Under the boat they laid them every one.
All he had drawn since first he came to sea, His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them there. They chuckled then to think how mad he'd be Finding his paintings vanished into air. Eight bells were struck, and feet from everywhere Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark; The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red spark.
Names in the darkness passed and voices cried; The red spark glowed and died, the faces seemed As things remembered when a brain has died, To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed. Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed, And on the clipper rushed with tossing mast, A bath of flame broke round her as she passed.
The watch was set, the night came, and the men Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep, Bunched like the dead-, still, like the dead, as when Plague in a city leaves none even to weep. The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep; The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars: South-west by south she staggered under the stars.
Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake Thinking of his unfitness for the sea. Each failure, each derision, each mistake, There in the life not made for such as he; A morning grim with trouble sure to be, A noon of pain from failure, and a night Bitter with men's contemning and despite.
This is the first beginning, the green leaf, Still in the Trades before bad weather fell; What harvest would he reap of hate and grief When the loud Horn made every life a hell? When the sick ship lay over, clanging her bell, And no time came for painting or for drawing, But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing?
Hell, he expected,-hell. His eyes grew blind; The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled, And then a gush of pity calmed his mind. The cruel torment of his thought was muffled, Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman shuffled, Humming his song, and through the open door A moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor.
The green bunk curtains moved, the brass rings clicked, The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning, The moonbeams' moving finger touched and picked, And all the stars in all the sky were burning. "This is the art I've come for, and am learning, The sea and ships and men and travelling things. It is most proud, whatever pain it brings."
He leaned upon his arm and watched the light Sliding and fading to the steady roll; This he would some day paint, the ship at night, And sleeping seamen tired to the soul; The space below the bunks as black as coal, Gleams upon chests, upon the unlit lamp, The ranging door hook, and the locker clamp.
This he would paint, and that, and all these scenes, And proud ships carrying on, and men their minds, And blues of rollers toppling into greens, And shattering into white that bursts and blinds, And scattering ships running erect like hinds, And men in oilskins beating down a sail High on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail.
With faces ducked down from the slanting drive Of half-thawed hail mixed with half-frozen spray, The roaring canvas like a thing alive, Shaking the mast, knocking their hands away, The foot-ropes jerking to the tug and sway, The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims, And icicles on the south-wester brims.
And sunnier scenes would grow under his brush, The tropic dawn with all things dropping dew, The darkness and the wonder and the hush, The insensate grey before the marvel grew; Then the veil lifted from the trembling blue, The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the rose, All the expanse of heaven a mind that glows.
He turned out of his bunk; the Cook still tossed, One of the other two spoke in his sleep. A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam crossed; Outside there was the ship, the night, the deep. "It is worth while," the youth said; "I will keep To my resolve, I'll learn to paint all this. My Lord, my God, how beautiful it is!"
Outside was the ship's rush to the wind's hurry, A resonant wire-hum from every rope, The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry, The leaning masts in their majestic slope, And all things strange with moonlight: filled with hope By all that beauty going as man bade, He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells were made. II Next day was Sunday, his free painting day, While the fine weather held, from eight till eight. He rose when called at five, and did array The round-house gear, and set the kit-bags straight; Then kneeling down, like housemaid at a grate, He scrubbed the deck with sand until his knees Were blue with dye from his wet dungarees.
Soon all was clean, his Sunday tasks were done; His day was clear for painting as he chose. The wetted decks were drying in the sun, The men coiled up, or swabbed, or sought repose. The drifts of silver arrows fell and rose As flying fish took wing; the breakfast passed, Wasting good time, but he was free at last.
Free for two hours and more to tingle deep, Catching a likeness in a line or tint, The canvas running up in a proud sweep, Wind-wrinkled at the clews, and white like lint, The glittering of the blue waves into glint; Free to attempt it all, the proud ship's pawings, The sea, the sky-he went to fetch his drawings.
Up to the deck-house top he quickly climbed, He stooped to find them underneath the boat. He found them all obliterated, slimed, Blotted, erased, gone from him line and note. They were all spoiled: a lump came in his throat, Being vain of his attempts, and tender skinned Beneath the skylight watching reefers grinned.
He clambered down, holding the ruined things. "Bosun," he called, "look here, did you do these: Wipe off my paints and cut them into strings, And smear them till you can't tell chalk from cheese? Don't stare, but did you do it? Answer, please." The Bosun turned: "I'll give you a thick ear! Do it! I didn't. Get to hell from here!
"I touch your stinking daubs? The Dauber's daft." A crowd was gathering now to hear the fun; The reefers tumbled out, the men laid aft, The Cook blinked, cleaning a mess kid in the sun. "What's up with Dauber now?" said everyone. "Someone has spoiled my drawings-look at this!" "Well, that's a dirty trick, by God, it is!"
"It is," said Sam, "a low-down dirty trick, To spoil a fellow's work in such a way, And if you catch him, Dauber, punch him sick, For he deserves it, be he who he may." A seaman shook his old head wise and grey. "It seems to me," he said, "who ain't no judge, Them drawings look much better now they're smudge."
"Where were they, Dauber? On the deck-house? Where ?" "Under the long-boat, in a secret place." "The blackguard must have seen you put them there. He is a swine! I tell him to his face: I didn't think we'd anyone so base." "Nor I," said Dauber. "There was six weeks' time Just wasted in these drawings: it's a crime!"
"Well, don't you say we did it," growled his mates, "And as for crime, be damned! the things were smears Best overboard, like you, with shot for weights; Thank God they're gone, and now go shake your ears." The Dauber listened, very near to tears. "Dauber, if I were you," said Sam again, "I'd aft, and see the Captain and complain."
A sigh came from the assembled seamen there. Would he be such a fool for their delight As go to tell the Captain? Would he dare? And would the thunder roar, the lightning smite? There was the Captain come to take a sight, Handling his sextant by the chart-house aft. The Dauber turned, the seamen thought him daft.
The Captain took his sights-a mate below Noted the times; they shouted to each other, The Captain quick with "Stop," the answer slow, Repeating slowly one height then another. The swooping clipper stumbled through the smother, The ladder brasses in the sunlight burned, The Dauber waited till the Captain turned.
There stood the Dauber, humbled to the bone, Waiting to speak. The Captain let him wait, Glanced at the course, and called in even tone, "What is the man there wanting, Mr. Mate ? The logship clattered on the grating straight, The reel rolled to the scuppers with a clatter, The Mate came grim: "Well, Dauber, what's the matter?"
" Please, Sir, they spoiled my drawings." "Who did?" "They." "Who's they?" "I don't quite know, Sir." "Don't quite know, sir? Then why are you aft to talk about it, hey? Whom d'you complain of?" "No one." "No one?" "No, sir." "Well, then, go forward till you've found them. Go, Sir. If you complain of someone, then I'll see. Now get to hell! and don't come bothering me."
"But, Sir, they washed them off, and some they cut. Look here, Sir, how they spoiled them." "Never mind. Go shove your head inside the scuttle butt, And that will make you cooler. You will find Nothing like water when you're mad and blind. Where were the drawings? in your chest, or where?" "Under the long-boat, Sir; I put them there."
"Under the long-boat, hey? Now mind your tip. I'll have the skids kept clear with nothing round them; The long-boat ain't a store in this here ship. Lucky for you it wasn't I who found them. If I had seen them, Dauber, I'd have drowned them. Now you be warned by this. I tell you plain, Don't stow your brass-rags under boats again.
"Go forward to your berth." The Dauber turned. The listeners down below them winked and smiled, Knowing how red the Dauber's temples burned, Having lost the case about his only child. His work was done to nothing and defiled, And there was no redress: the Captain's voice Spoke, and called "Painter," making him rejoice.
The Captain and the Mate conversed together. "Drawings, you tell me, Mister?" "Yes, sir; views: Wiped off with turps, I gather that's his blether. He says they're things he can't afford to lose. He's Dick, who came to sea in dancing shoes, And found the dance a bear dance. They were hidden Under the long-boat's chocks, which I've forbidden."
"Wiped off with turps?" The Captain sucked his lip. "Who did it, Mister?" "Reefers, I suppose; Them devils do the most pranks in a ship; The round-house might have done it, Cook or Bose." "I can't take notice of it till he knows. How does he do his work?" "Well, no offence; He tries; he does his best. He's got no sense."
"Painter," the Captain called; the Dauber came. " "What's all this talk of drawings? What's the matter?" "They spoiled my drawings, sir." "Well, who's to blame? The long-boat's there for no one to get at her; You broke the rules, and if you choose to scatter Gear up and down where it's no right to be, And suffer as result, don't come to me.
"Your place is in the round-house, and your gear Belongs where you belong. Who spoiled your things? Find out who spoiled your things and fetch him here." "But, sir, they cut the canvas into strings." 'I want no argument nor questionings. Go back where you belong and say no more, And please remember that you're not on shore."
The Dauber touched his brow and slunk away, They eyed his going with a bitter eye. "Dauber," said Sam, "what did the Captain say?" The Dauber drooped his head without reply. "Go forward, Dauber, and enjoy your cry." The Mate limped to the rail; like little feet Over his head the drumming reef-points beat.
The Dauber reached the berth and entered in, Much mockery followed after as he went, And each face seemed to greet him with the grin Of hounds hot following on a creature spent. "Aren't you a fool?" each mocking visage meant. "Who did it, Dauber? What did Captain say? It is a crime, and there'll be hell to pay."
He bowed his head, the house was full of smoke; The Sails was pointing shackes on his chest. "Lord, Dauber, be a man and take a joke" He puffed his pipe,," and let the matter rest. Spit brown, my son, and get a hairy breast; Get shoulders on you at the crojick braces, And let this painting business go to blazes.
"What good can painting do to anyone? I don't say never do it; far from that, No harm in sometimes painting just for fun. Keep it for fun, and stick to what you're at. Your job's to fill your bones up and get fat; Rib up like Barney's bull, and thick your neck. Throw paints to hell, boy; you belong on deck."
"That's right," said Chips; "It's down-right good advice. Painting's no good; what good can painting do Up on a lower topsail stiff with ice, With all your little fish-hooks frozen blue? Painting won't help you at the weather clew, Nor pass your gaskets for you, nor make sail. Painting's a balmy job not worth a nail."
The Dauber did not answer; time was passing. He pulled his easel out, his paints, his stool. The wind was dropping, and the sea was glassing New realms of beauty waited for his rule; The draught out of the crojick kept him cool. He sat to paint, alone and melancholy. "No turning fools," the Chips said, "from their folly."
He dipped his brush and tried to fix a line And then came peace, and gentle beauty came, Turning his spirit's water into wine, Lightening his darkness with a touch of flame: O, joy of trying for beauty, ever the same, You never fail, your comforts never end; O, balm of this world's way; O, perfect friend!
III They lost the Trades soon after; then came calm, Light little gusts and rain, which soon increased To glorious northers shouting out a psalm At seeing the bright blue water silver fleeced; Hornwards she rushed, trampling the seas to yeast. There fell a rain-squall in a blind day's end When for an hour the Dauber found a friend.
Out of the rain the voices called and passed, The stay-sails flogged, the tackle yanked and shook. Inside the harness-room a lantern cast Light and wild shadows as it ranged its hook. The watch on deck was gathered in the nook, They had taken shelter in that secret place, Wild light gave wild emotions to each face.
One beat the beef-cask, and the others sang A song that had brought anchors out of seas In ports where bells of Christians never rang, Nor any sea mark blazed among the trees. By forlorn swamps, in ice, by windy keys, That song had sounded; now it shook the air From these eight wanderers brought together there.
Under the poop-break, sheltering from the rain, The Dauber sketched some likeness of the room, A note to be a prompting to his brain, A spark to make old memory reillume. Dauber," said someone near him in the gloom, "How goes it, Dauber?" It was reefer Si. "There's not much use in trying to keep dry."
They sat upon the sail-room doorway coaming, The lad held forth like youth, the Dauber listened To how the boy had had a taste for roaming, And what the sea is said to be and isn't. Where the dim lamplight fell the wet deck glistened. I said the Horn was still some weeks away, "But tell me, Dauber, where d'you hail from? Eh?"
The rain blew past and let the stars appear; The seas grew larger as the moonlight grew; For half an hour the ring of heaven was clear, Dusty with moonlight, grey rather than blue; In that great moon the showing stars were few. The sleepy time-boy's feet passed overhead. "I come from out past Gloucester," Dauber said;
"Not far from Pauntley, if you know those parts; The place is Spital Farm, near Silver Hill, Above a trap-hatch where a mill-stream starts. We had the mill once, but we've stopped the mill; My dad and sister keep the farm on still. We're only tenants, but we've rented there, Father and son, for over eighty year.
"Father has worked the farm since grandfer went; It means the world to him; I can't think why. They bleed him to the last half-crown for rent, And this and that have almost milked him dry. The land's all starved; if he'd put money by, And corn was up, and rent was down two-thirds.... But then they aren't, so what's the use of words.
"Yet still he couldn't bear to see it pass To strangers, or to think a time would come When other men than us would mow the grass, And other names than ours have the home. Some sorrows come from evil thought, but some Comes when two men are near, and both are blind To what is generous in the other's mind.
"I was the only boy, and father thought I'd farm the Spital after he was dead, And many a time he took me out and taught About manures and seed-corn white and red, And soils and hops, but I'd an empty head; Harvest or seed, I would not do a turn, I loathed the farm,I didn't want to learn.
"He did not mind at first, he thought it youth Feeling the collar, and that I should change. Then time gave him some inklings of the truth, And that I loathed the farm, and wished to range. Truth to a man of fifty's always strange; It was most strange and terrible to him That I, his heir, should be the devil's limb.
"Yet still he hoped the Lord might change my mind. I'd see him bridle-in his wrath and hate, And almost break my heart he was so kind, Biting his lips sore with resolve to wait. And then I'd try awhile; but it was Fate: I didn't want to learn; the farm to me Was mire and hopeless work and misery.
"Though there were things I loved about it, too, The beasts, the apple-trees, and going haying. And then I tried; but no, it wouldn't do, The farm was prison, and my thoughts were straying. And there'd come father, with his grey head, praying, 'O, my dear son, don't let the Spital pass; It's my old home, boy, where your grandfer was.
"'And now you won't learn farming; you don't care The old home's nought to you. I've tried to teach you; 've begged Almighty God, boy, all I dare, To use His hand if word of mine won't reach you. Boy, for your granfer's sake I do beseech you, Don't let the Spital pass to strangers. Squire Has said he'd give it you if we require.
"'Your mother used to walk here, boy, with me; It was her favourite walk down to the mill; And there we'd talk how little death would be, Knowing our work was going on here still. You've got the brains, you only want the will, Don't disappoint your mother and your father. I'll give you time to travel, if you'd rather.'
"But, no, I'd wander up the brooks to read. Then sister Jane would start with nagging tongue, Saying my sin made father's heart to bleed, And how she feared she'd live to see me hung. And then she'd read me bits from Dr. Young. And when we three would sit to supper, Jane Would fillip dad till dad began again.
"'I've been here all my life, boy. I was born Up in the room above looks on the mead. I never thought you'd cockle my clean corn, And leave the old home to a stranger's seed. Father and I have made here 'thout a weed: We've give our lives to make that. Eighty years. And now I go down to the grave in tears.'
"And then I'd get ashamed and take off coat, And work maybe a week, ploughing and sowing And then I'd creep away and sail my boat, Or watch the water when the mill was going. That's my delight-to be near water flowing, Dabbling or sailing boats or jumping stanks, Or finding moorhens' nests along the banks.
"And one day father found a ship I'd built; He took the cart-whip to me over that, And I, half mad with pain, and sick with guilt, Went up and hid in what we called the flat, A dusty hole given over to the cat. She kittened there; the kittens had worn paths Among the cobwebs, dust, and broken laths.
"And putting down my hand between the beams I felt a leathery thing, and pulled it clear: A book with white cocoons stuck in the seams. Where spiders had had nests for many a year. It was my mother's sketch-book; hid, I fear, Lest dad should ever see it. Mother's life Was not her own while she was father's wife.
"There were her drawings dated, pencilled faint. March was the last one, eighteen eighty-three, Unfinished that, for tears had smeared the paint. The rest was landscape, not yet brought to be. That was a holy afternoon to me; That book a sacred book; the flat a place Where I could meet my mother face to face.
"She had found peace of spirit, mother had, Drawing the landscape from the attic there Heart-broken, often, after rows with dad, Hid like a wild thing in a secret lair. That rotting sketch-book showed me how and where I, too, could get away; and then I knew That drawing was the work I longed to do.
Drawing became my life, I drew, I toiled, And every penny I could get I spent On paints and artists's matters, which I spoiled Up in the attic to my heart's content, Till one day father asked me what I meant; The time had come, he said, to make an end. Now it must finish; what did I intend?
Either I took to farming, like his son, In which case he would teach me, early and late (provided that my daubing mood was done), Or I must go; it must be settled straight. If I refused to farm, there was the gate. I was to choose, his patience was all gone, The present state of things could not go on.
"Sister was there; she eyed me while he spoke. The kitchen clock ran down and struck the hour, And something told me father's heart was broke, For all he stood so set and looked so sour. Jane took a duster, and began to scour A pewter on the dresser; she was crying. I stood stock still a long time, not replying.
"Dad waited, then he snorted and turned round. Well, think of it,-' he said. He left the room, His boots went Clop along the stony ground Out to the orchard and the apple-bloom. A cloud came past the sun and made a gloom; I swallowed with dry lips, then sister turned. She was dead white but for her eyes that burned.
"'You're breaking father's heart, Joe,' she began; 'It's not as if,-? she checked, in too much pain. 'O, Joe, don't help to kill so fine a man; You're giving him our mother over again. It's wearing him to death, Joe, heart and brain; You know what store he sets on leaving this To (it's too cruel)-to a son of his.
"'Yet you go painting all the day. O, Joe, Couldn't you make an effort? Can't you see What folly it is of yours? It's not as though You are a genius or could ever be. O, Joe, for father's sake, if not for me, Give up this craze for painting, and be wise And work with father, where your duty lies.'
"'It goes too deep,' I said; 'I loathe the farm; I couldn't help, even if I'd the mind. Even if I helped, I'd only do him harm; Father would see it, if he were not blind. I was not built to farm, as he would find. O, Jane, its bitter hard to stand alone And spoil my father's life or spoil my own.'
"'Spoil both', she said, 'the way you're shaping now. You're only a boy not knowing your own good. Where will you go, suppose you leave here? How Do you propose to earn your daily food? Draw? Daub the pavements? There's a feckless brood Goes to the devil daily, Joe, in cities Only from thinking how divine their wit is.
"'Clouds are they, without water, carried away. And you'll be one of them, the way you're going, Daubing at silly pictures all the day, And praised by silly fools who're always blowing. And you choose this when you might go a-sowing, Casting the good corn into chosen mould That shall in time bring forth a hundred-fold,'
"So we went on, but in the end it ended. I felt I'd done a murder; I felt sick. There's much in human minds cannot be mended, And that, not I, played dad a cruel trick. There was one mercy: that it ended quick. I went to join my mother's brother: he Lived down the Severn. He was kind to me.
"And there I learned house-painting for a living. I'd have been happy there, but that I knew I'd sinned before my father past forgiving, And that they sat at home, that silent two, Wearing the fire out and the evening through, Silent, defeated, broken, in despair, My plate unset, my name gone, and my chair.
"I saw all that; and sister Jane came white White as a ghost, with fiery, weeping eyes. I saw her all day long and half the night, Bitter as gall, and passionate and wise. 'Joe, you have killed your father: there he lies. You have done your work-you with our mother's ways. She said it plain, and then her eyes would blaze.
"And then one day I had a job to do Down below bridge, by where the docks begin, And there I saw a clipper towing through, Up from the sea that morning, entering in. Raked to the nines she was, lofty and thin, Her ensign ruffling red, her bunts in pile, Beauty and strength together, wonder, style.
"She docked close to the gates, and there she lay Over the water from me, well in sight; And as I worked I watched her all the day, Finding her beauty ever fresh delight. Her house-flag was bright green with strips of white; High in the sunny air it rose to shake Above the skysail poles' most splendid rake.
"And when I felt unhappy I would look Over the river at her; and her pride, So calm, so quiet, came as a rebuke To half the passionate pathways which I tried-, And though the autumn ran its term and died, And winter fell and cold December came, She was still splendid there, and still the same.
"Then on a day she sailed; but when she went My mind was clear on what I had to try: To see the sea and ships, and what they meant, That was the thing I longed to do; so I Drew and worked hard, and studied and put by, And thought of nothing else but that one end, But let all else go hang,love, money, friend.
"And now I've shipped as Dauber I've begun. It was hard work to find a dauber's berth; I hadn't any friends to find me one, Only my skill, for what it may be worth; But I'm at sea now, going about the earth, And when the ship's paid off, when we return, I'll join some Paris studio and learn."
He stopped, the air came moist, Si did not speak; The Dauber turned his eyes to where he sat, Pressing the sail-room hinges with his cheek, His face half covered with a dropping hat. Huge dewdrops from the stay-sails dropped and spat. Si did not stir, the Dauber touched his sleeve; A little birdlike noise came from a sheave.
Si was asleep, sleeping a calm deep sleep, Still as a warden of the Egyptian dead In some old haunted temple buried deep Under the desert sand, sterile and red. The Dauber shook his arm; Si jumped and said, "Good yarn, I swear! I say, you have a brain Was that eight bells that went?" He slept again.
Then waking up, "I've had a nap," he cried. "Was that one bell? What, Dauber, you still here?" "Si there?" the Mate's voice called. "Sir," he replied. The order made the lad's thick vision clear; A something in the Mate's voice made him fear. "Si," said the Mate, "I hear you've made a friend, Dauber, in short. That friendship's got to end.
"You're a young gentleman. Your place aboard Is with the gentlemen abaft the mast. You're learning to command; you can't afford To yam with any man. But there.... it's past. You've done it once; let this time be the last. The Dauber's place is forward. Do it again, I'll put you bunking forward with the men.
"Dismiss." Si went, but Sam, beside the Mate, Timekeeper there, walked with him to the rail And whispered him the menace of "You wait", Words which have turned full many a reefer pale. The watch was changed; the watch on deck trimmed sail Sam, going below, called all the reefers down, Sat in his bunk and eyed them with a frown.
"Si here," he said, "has soiled the half-decks' name Talking to Dauber-Dauber, the ship's clout. A reefer takes the Dauber for a flame, The half-deck take the round-house walking out. He's soiled the half-deck's honour; now, no doubt, The Bosun and his mates will come here sneaking, Asking for smokes, or blocking gangways speaking.
"'I'm not a vain man, given to blow or boast; I'm not a proud man, but I truly feel That while I've bossed this mess and ruled this roast I've kept this hooker's half-deck damned genteel. Si must ask pardon, or be made to squeal. Down on your knees, dog; them we love we chasten. Jao, pasea, my son-in English, Hasten ."
Si begged for pardon, meekly kneeling down Before the reefer's mess assembled grim. The lamp above them smoked the glass all brown; Beyond the door the dripping sails were dim. The Dauber passed the door; none spoke to him. He sought his berth and slept, or, waking, heard Rain on the deck-house-rain, no other word.
IV Out of the air a time of quiet came, Calm fell upon the heaven like a drouth; The brass sky watched the brassy water flame. Drowsed as a snail the clipper loitered south Slowly, with no white bone across her mouth; No rushing glory, like a queen made bold, The Dauber strove to draw her as she rolled.
There the four leaning spires of canvas rose, Royals and skysails lifting, gently lifting, White like the brightness that a great fish blows When billows are at peace and ships are drifting; With mighty jerks that set the shadows shifting, The courses tugged their tethers: a blue haze Drifted like ghosts of flocks come down to graze.
There the great skyline made her perfect round, Notched now and then by the sea's deeper blue; A smoke-smutch marked a steamer homeward bound, The haze wrought all things to intenser hue. In tingling impotence the Dauber drew As all men draw keen to the shaken soul To give a hint that might suggest the whole.
A naked seaman washing a red shirt Sat at a tub whistling between his teeth; Complaining blocks quavered like something hurt. A sailor cut an old boot for a sheath, The ship bowed to her shadow-ship beneath, And little splash of spray came at the roll On to the deck-planks from the scupper-hole.
He watched it, painting patiently, as paints, With eyes that pierce behind the blue sky's veil, The Benedictine in a Book of Saints Watching the passing of the Holy Grail; The green dish dripping blood, the trump, the hail, The spears that pass, the memory and the passion, The beauty moving under this world's fashion.
But as he painted, slowly, man by man, The seamen gathered near; the Bosun stood Behind him, jeering; then the Sails began Sniggering with comment that it was not good. Chips flicked his sketch with little scraps of wood, Saying, "That hit the top-knot," every time. Cook mocked, "My lovely drawings; it's a crime."
Slowly the men came nearer, till a crowd Stood at his elbow, muttering as he drew; The Bosun, turning to them, spoke aloud, "This is the ship that never got there. You Look at her here, what Dauber's trying to do. Look at her! lummy, like a Christmas-tree. That thing's a ship; he calls this painting. See?"
Seeing the crowd, the Mate came forward; then Sir, " said the Bosun, "come and see the sight ! Here's Dauber makes a circus for the men. He calls this thing a ship-this hell's delight!" 'Man," said the Mate, "you'll never get her right Daubing like that. Look here!" He took a brush "Now Dauber, watch; I'll put you to the blush.
"Look here. Look there. Now watch this ship of mine." He drew her swiftly from a memory stored. "God, sir," the Bosun said, "you do her fine!" "Ay," said the Mate, "I do so, by the Lord ! I'll paint a ship with any man aboard." They hung about his sketch like beasts at bait. "There now, I taught him painting," said the Mate.
When he had gone, the gathered men dispersed; Yet two or three still lingered to dispute What errors made the Dauber's work the worst. They probed his want of knowledge to the root. " Bei Gott I " they swore, " der Dauber cannot do't He haf no knolich how to put der pense. Der Mate's is goot. Der Dauber haf no sense."'
"You hear?" the Bosun cried, "you cannot do it! "A gospel truth," the Cook said, "true as hell! And wisdom, Dauber, if you only knew it; A five year boy would do a ship as well." "If that's the kind of thing you hope to sell, God help you," echoed Chips. "I tell you true, The job's beyond you, Dauber; drop it, do.
"Drop it, in God's name drop it, and have done! You see you cannot do it. Here's the Mate Paints you to frazzles before everyone; Paints you a dandy clipper while you wait. While you, Lord love us, daub. I tell you straight We've had enough of daubing; drop it; quit. You cannot paint, so make an end of it."
"That's sense," said all; "you cannot, why pretend.? "The Dauber rose and put his easel by. "You've said enough," he said, "now let it end. Who cares how bad my painting may be? I Mean to go on, and, if I fail, to try. However much I miss of my intent, If I have done my best I'll be content.
"You cannot understand that. Let it be. You cannot understand, nor know, nor share. This is a matter touching only me; My sketch may be a daub, for aught I care. You may be right. But even if you were, Your mocking should not stop this work of mine; Rot though it be, its prompting is divine.
"You cannot understand that-you, and you, And you, you Bosun. You can stand and jeer, That is the task your spirit fits you to, That you can understand and hold most dear. Grin, then, like collars, ear to donkey ear, But let me daub. Try, you, to understand Which task will bear the light best on God's hand."
V The wester came as steady as the Trades; Brightly it blew, and still the ship did shoulder The brilliance of the water's white cockades Into the milky green of smoky smoulder. The sky grew bluer and the air grew colder. Southward she thundered while the westers held, Proud, with taut bridles, pawing, but compelled.
And still the Dauber strove, though all men mocked, To draw the splendour of the passing thing, And deep inside his heart a something locked, Long pricking in him, now began to sting A fear of the disasters storm might bring; His rank as painter would be ended then, He would keep watch and watch like other men.
And go aloft with them to man the yard When the great ship was rolling scuppers under, Burying her snout all round the compass card, While the green water struck at her and stunned her; When the lee-rigging slacked, when one long thunder Boomed from the black to windward, when the sail Booted and spurred the devil in the gale.
For him to ride on men: that was the time The Dauber dreaded; then lest the test would come, When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks with slime, And all the air was blind with flying scum; When the drenched sails were furled, when the fierce hum In weather riggings died into the roar Of God's eternal never tamed by shore.
Once in the passage he had worked aloft, Shifting her suits one summer afternoon, In the bright Trade wind, when the wind was soft, Shaking the points, making the tackle croon. But that was child's play to the future: soon He would be ordered up when sails and spars Were flying and going mad among the stars.
He had been scared that first time, daunted, thrilled, Not by the height so much as by the size, And then the danger to the man unskilled In standing on a rope that runs through eyes. "But in a storm," he thought, "the yards will rise And roll together down, and snap their gear!" The sweat came cold upon his palms for fear.
Sometimes. in Gloucester he had felt a pang Swinging below the house-eaves on a stage. But stages carry rails; here he would hang Upon a jerking rope in a storm's rage, Ducked that the sheltering oilskin might assuage The beating of the storm, clutching the jack, Beating the sail, and being beaten back.
Drenched, frozen, gasping, blinded, beaten dumb, High in the night, reeling great blinding arcs As the ship rolled, his chappy fingers numb, The deck below a narrow blur of marks, The sea a welter of whiteness shot with sparks, Now snapping up in bursts, now dying away, Salting the horizontal snow with spray.
A hundred and fifty feet above the deck, And there, while the ship rolls, boldly to sit Upon a foot-rope moving, jerk and check, While half a dozen seamen work on it; Held by one hand, straining, by strength and wit To toss a gasket's coil around the yard, How could he compass that when blowing hard?
And if he failed in any least degree, Or faltered for an instant, or showed slack, He might go drown himself within the sea, And add a bubble to the clipper's track. He had signed his name, there was no turning back, No pardon for default-this must be done. One iron rule at sea binds everyone.
Till now he had been treated with contempt As neither man nor thing, a creature borne On the ship's articles, but left exempt From all the seamen's life except their scorn. But he would rank as seaman off the Horn, Work as a seaman, and be kept or cast By standards set for men before the mast.
Even now they shifted suits of sails; they bent The storm-suit ready for the expected time; The mighty wester that the Plate had lent Had brought them far into the wintry clime. At dawn, out of the shadow, there was rime, The dim Magellan Clouds were frosty clear, The wind had edge, the testing-time was near.
And then he wondered if the tales were lies Told by old hands to terrify the new, For, since the ship left England, only twice Had there been need to start a sheet or clew, Then only royals, for an hour or two, And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold. What were these gales of which the stories told?
The thought went by. He had heard the Bosun tell Too often, and too fiercely, not to know That being off the Horn in June is Hell: Hell of continual toil in ice and snow, Frostbitten hell in which the westers blow Shrieking for days on end, in which the seas Gulf the starved seamen till their marrows freeze.
Such was the weather he might look to find, Such was the work expected: there remained Firmly to set his teeth, resolve his mind, And be the first, however much it pained, And bring his honour round the Horn unstained, And win his mates' respect; and thence, untainted, Be ranked as man however much he painted.
He drew deep breath; a gantline swayed aloft A lower topsail, hard with rope and leather, Such as men's frozen fingers fight with oft Below the Ramirez in Cape Hom weather. The arms upon the yard hove all together, Lighting the head along; a thought occurred Within the painter's brain like a bright bird:
That this, and so much like it, of man's toil, Compassed by naked manhood in strange places, Was all heroic, but outside the coil Within which modern art gleams or grimaces; That if he drew that line of sailor's faces Sweating the sail, their passionate play and change, It would be new, and wonderful, and strange.
That that was what his work meant; it would be A training in new vision-a revealing Of passionate men in battle with the sea, High on an unseen stage, shaking and reeling; And men through him would understand their feeling, Their might, their misery, their tragic power, And all by suffering pain a little hour;
High on the yard with them, feeling their pain, Battling with them; and it had not been done. He was a door to new worlds in the brain, A window opening letting in the sun, A voice saying, "Thus is bread fetched and ports won, And life lived out at sea where men exist Solely by man's strong brain and sturdy wrist."
So he decided, as he cleaned his brasses, Hearing without, aloft, the curse, the shout Where the taut gantline passes and repasses, Heaving new topsails to be lighted out. It was most proud, however self might doubt, To share man's tragic toll and paint it true. He took the offered Fate: this he would do.
That night the snow fell between six and seven, A little feathery fall so light, so dry, An aimless dust out of a confused heaven, Upon an air no steadier than a sigh; The powder dusted down and wandered by So purposeless, so many, and so cold, Then died, and the wind ceased and the ship rolled.
Rolled till she clanged-rolled till the brain was tired, Marking the acme of the heaves, the pause While the sea-beauty rested and respired, Drinking great draughts of roller at her hawse. Flutters of snow came aimless upon flaws. Lock up your paints," the Mate said, speaking light: "This is the Horn; you'll join my watch to-night!"
VI All through the windless night the clipper rolled In a great swell with oily gradual heaves Which rolled her down until her time-bells tolled, Clang, and the weltering water moaned like beeves. The thundering rattle of slatting shook the sheaves, Startles of water made the swing ports gush, The sea was moaning and sighing and saying "Hush!"
It was all black and starless. Peering down Into the water, trying to pierce the gloom, One saw a dim, smooth, oily glitter of brown Heaving and dying away and leaving room For yet another. Like the march of doom Came those great powers of marching silences; Then foe came down. dead-cold, and hid the seas.
They set the Dauber to the foghorn. There He stood upon the poop, making to sound Out of the pump the sailor's nasal blare, Listening lest ice should make the note resound. She bayed there like a solitary hound Lost in a covert; all the watch she bayed. The fog, come closelier down, no answer made.
Denser it grew, until the ship was lost. The elemental hid her; she was merged In mufflings of dark death, like a man's ghost, New to the change of death, yet thither urged. Then from the hidden waters something surged Mournful, despairing, great, greater than speech, A noise like one slow wave on a still beach.
Mournful, and then again mournful, and still Out of the night that mighty voice arose; The Dauber at his foghorn felt the thrill. Who rode that desolate sea? What forms were those? Mournful, from things defeated, in the throes Of memory of some conquered hunting-ground, Out of the night of death arose the sound.
"Whales!" said the Mate. They stayed there all night long Answering the horn. Out of the night they spoke, Defeated creatures who had suffered wrong, But were still noble underneath the stroke. They filled the darkness when the Dauber woke; The men came peering to the rail to hear, And the sea sighed, and the fog rose up sheer.
A wall of nothing at the world's last edge, Where no life came except defeated life. The Dauber felt shut in within a hedge, Behind which form was hidden and thought was rife, And that a blinding flash, a thrust, a knife Would sweep the hedge away and make all plain, Brilliant beyond all words, blinding the brain.
So the night passed, but then no morning broke Only a something showed that night was dead. A sea-bird, cackling like a devil, spoke, And the fog drew away and hung like lead. Like mighty cliffs it shaped, sullen and red; Like glowering gods at watch it did appear, And sometimes drew away, and then drew near.
Like islands, and like chasms, and like hell, But always mighty and red, gloomy and ruddy, Shutting the visible sea in like a well; Slow heaving in vast ripples, blank and muddy, Where the sun should have risen it streaked bloody. The day was stillborn; all the sea-fowl scattering Splashed the still water, mewing, hovering, clattering.
Then Polar snow came down little and light, Till all the sky was hidden by the small, Most multitudinous drift of dirty white Tumbling and wavering down and covering all, Covering the sky, the sea, the clipper tall, Furring the ropes with white, casing the mast, Coming on no known air, but blowing past.
And all the air seemed full of gradual moan, As though in those cloud-chasms the horns were blowing The mort for gods cast out and overthrown, Or for the eyeless sun plucked out and going. Slow the low gradual moan came in the snowing; The Dauber felt the prelude had begun. The snowstorm fluttered by; he saw the sun
Show and pass by, gleam from one towering prison Into another, vaster and more grim, Which in dull crags of darkness had arisen To muffle-to a final door on him. The gods upon the dull crags lowered dim, The pigeons chattered, quarrelling in the track. In the south-west the dimness dulled to black.
Then came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!" The Dauber knew its meaning; it was come: Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck, And crumples steel and smites the strong man dumb. Down clattered flying kites and staysails: some Sang out in quick, high calls: the fair-leads skirled, And from the south-west came the end of the world.
"Caught in her ball-dress," said the Bosun, hauling; "Lee-ay, lee-ay!" quick, high, come the men's call; It was all wallop of sails and startled calling. "Let fly!" "Let got" "Clew up!" and "Let go All" "Now up and make them fast!" "Here, give us a haul" "Now up and stow them! Quick! By God ! we're done!" The blackness crunched all memory of the sun.
"Up!" said the Mate. "Mizen top-gallants. Hurry!" The Dauber ran, the others ran, the sails Slatted and shook; out of the black a flurry Whirled in fine lines, tattering the edge to trails. Painting and art and England were old tales old in some other life to that pale man, Who struggled with white fear and gulped and ran.
He struck a ringbolt in his haste and fell, Rose, sick with pain, half-lamed in his left knee; He reached the shrouds where clambering men pell-mell Hustled each other up and cursed him; he Hurried aloft with them: then from the sea Came a cold, sudden breath that made the hair Stiff on the neck, as though Death whispered there.
A man below him punched him in the side. "Get up, you Dauber, or let me get past." He saw the belly of the skysail skied, Gulped, and clutched tight, and tried to go more fast, Sometimes he missed his ratline and was grassed, Scraped his shin raw against the rigid line dine. The clamberers reached the futtock-shrouds' incline.
Cursing they came; one, kicking out behind, Kicked Dauber in the mouth, and one below Punched at his calves; the futtock-shrouds inclined It was a perilous path for one to go. "Up, Dauber, up!" A curse followed a blow. He reached the top and gasped, then on, then on. And one voice yelled " Let go!" and one " All gone!"
Fierce clamberers, some in oilskins, some in rags, Hustling and hurrying up, up the steep stairs. Before the windless sails were blown to flags, And whirled like dirty birds athwart great airs, Ten men in all, to get this mast of theirs Snugged to the gale in time. "Up! Damn you, run!" The mizen topmast head was safely won.
"Lay out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Out on the yard, gripping the yard and feeling Sick at the mighty space of air displayed Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling. A giddy fear was on him; be was reeling. He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack. A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his back.
The yard was shaking, for a brace was loose. He felt that he would fall; he clutched, he bent, Clammy with natural terror to the shoes While idiotic promptings came and went. Snow fluttered on a wind-flaw and was spent; He saw the water darken. Someone yelled, "Frap it; don't stay to fur I! Hold on!" He held.
Darkness came down-half darkness-in a whirl; The sky went out, the waters disappeared. He felt a shocking pressure of blowing hurl The ship upon her side. The darkness speared At her with wind; she staggered, she careered, Then down she lay. The Dauber felt her go; He saw his yard tilt downwards. Then the snow
Whirled all about-dense, multitudinous, cold, Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek, Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, took hold, Flattening the flying drift against the cheek. The yards buckled and bent, man could not speak. The ship lay on her broadside; the wind's sound Had devilish malice at having got her downed
How long the gale had blown he could not tell, Only the world bad changed, his life had died. A moment now was everlasting hell. Nature an onslaught from the weather side, A withering rush of death, a frost that cried, Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail.
"Cut!" yelled his mate. He looked-the sail was gone, Blown into rags in the first furious squall; The tatters drummed the devil's tattoo. On The buckling yard a block thumped like a mall. The ship lay,the sea smote her, the wind's bawl Came, "loo, loo, loo!" The devil cried his hounds On to the poor spent stag strayed in his bounds.
"Cut! Ease her!" yelled his mate; the Dauber heard. His mate wormed up the tilted yard and slashed, A rag of canvas skimmed like a darting bird. The snow whirled, the ship bowed to it, the gear lashed, The sea-tops were cut off and flung down smashed; Tatters of shouts were flung, the rags of yells, And clang, clang, clang, below beat the two bells.
"O God!" the Dauber moaned. A roaring rang, Blasting the royals like a cannonade; The backstays parted with a crackling clang, The upper spars were snapped like twigs decayed, Snapped at their heels, their jagged splinters splayed, Like white and ghastly hairs erect with fear. The Mate yelled, "Gone, by God, and pitched them clear !"
" Up! " yelled the Bosun; " up and clear the wreck! "The Dauber followed where he led: below He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow. He saw the streamers of the rigging blow Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast, Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast
Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice, Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage, An utter bridle given to utter vice, Limitless power mad with endless rage Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age. He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail. Thinking that comfort was a fairy-tale.
Told long ago-long, long ago,-long since Heard of in other lives-imagined, dreamed, There where the basest beggar was a prince To him in torment where the tempest screamed, Comfort and warmth and ease no longer seemed Things that a man could know: soul, body, brain, Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain.
"Leave that!" the Bosun shouted; "Crojick save!" The splitting crojick, not yet gone to rags, Thundered below, beating till something gave, Bellying between its buntlines into bags. Some birds were blown past, shrieking: dark, like shags, Their backs seemed, looking down. "Leu, leu!" they cried. The ship lay, the seas thumped her; she had died.
They reached the crojick yard, which buckled, buckled Like a thin whalebone to the topsail's strain. They laid upon the yard and heaved and knuckled, Pounding the sail, which jangled and leapt again. It was quite hard with ice, its rope like chain, Its strength like seven devils; it shook the mast. They cursed and toiled and froze: a long time passed.
Two hours passed, then a dim lightening came. Those frozen ones upon the yard could see The mainsail and the foresail still the same, Still battling with the hands and blowing free, Rags tattered where the staysails used to be. The lower topsails stood; the ship's lee deck Seethed with four feet of water filled with wreck.
An hour more went by; the Dauber lost All sense of hands and feet, all sense of all But of a wind that cut him to the ghost, And of a frozen fold he had to haul, Of heavens that fell and never ceased to fall, And ran in smoky snatches along the sea, Leaping from crest to wave-crest, yelling. He
Lost sense of time; no bells went, but he felt Ages go over him. At last, at last They frapped the cringled crojick's icy pelt; In frozen bulge and bunt they made it fast. Then, scarcely live, they laid in to the mast. The Captain's speaking trumpet gave a blare, "Make fast the topsail, Mister, while you're there.'
Some seamen cursed, but up they had to go- Up to the topsail yard to spend an hour Stowing a topsail in a blinding snow, Which made the strongest man among them cower. More men came up, the fresh hands gave them power, They stowed the sail; then with a rattle of chain One half the crojick burst its bonds again.
They stowed the sail, frapping it round with rope, Leaving no surface for the wind, no fold, Then down the weather shrouds, half dead, they grope; That struggle with the sail had made them old. hey wondered if the crojick furl would hold. "Lucky," said one, "it didn't spring the spar." "Lucky!" the Bosun said, "Lucky! We are!"
She came within two shakes of turning top Or stripping all her shroud-screws, that first quiff. "Now fish those wash-deck buckets out of the slop. Here's Dauber says he doesn't like Cape Stiff. This isn't wind, man, this is only a whiff. Hold on, all hands, hold on!" a sea, half seen, Paused, mounted, burst, and filled the main-deck green.
The Dauber felt a mountain of water fall. It covered him deep, deep, he felt it fill, Over his head, the deck, the fife-rails, all, Quieting the ship, she trembled and lay still. Then with a rush and shatter and clanging shrill Over she went; he saw the water cream Over the bitts; he saw the half-deck stream.
Then in the rush he swirled, over she went; Her lee-rail dipped, he Struck, and something gave; His legs went through a port as the roll spent; She paused, then rolled, and back the water drave. He drifted with it as a part of the wave, Drowning, half-stunned, exhausted, partly frozen, He struck the booby hatchway; then the Bosun
Leaped, seeing his chance, before the next sea burst, And caught him as fie drifted, seized him, held, Up-ended him against the bitts, and Cursed. "This ain't the George's Swimming Baths," lie yelled; "Keep on your feet! " Another grey-back felled The two together, and the Bose, half-blind, Spat: "One's a joke," lie cursed, "but two's unkind."
"Now, damn it, Dauber!" said the Mate. "Look out, Or you'll be over the side!" The water freed; Each clanging freeing-port became a spout. The men cleared tip the decks as there was need. The Dauber's head was cut, he felt it bleed Into his oilskins as he Clutched and coiled. Water and sky were devil's brews which boiled,
Boiled, shrieked, and glowered-, but the ship was saved. Snugged safely down, though fourteen sails were split. Out of the dark a fiercer fury raved. The grey-backs died and mounted, each crest lit With a white toppling gleam that hissed from it And slid, or leaped, or ran with whirls of cloud, Mad with inhuman life that shrieked aloud.
The watch was called; Dauber might go below. "Splice the main brace! " the Mate called. All laid aft To get a gulp of momentary glow As some reward for having saved the craft. The steward ladled mugs, from which each quaff'd Whisky, with water, Sugar, and lime, juice hot, A quarter of a pint each made the tot.
Beside the lamp-room door the stew stood Ladling it out, and each man came in turn, Tipped his sou'-wester, drank it, grunted "Good! And shambled forward, letting it slowly burn: When all were gone the Dauber lagged astern, Torn by his frozen body 's lust for heat, The liquor's pleasant smell, so warm so sweet,
And by a promise long since made at home Never to taste strong liquor. Now he knew The worth of liquor; now lie wanted some. His frozen body urged him to the brew; Yet it seemed wrong, an evil thing to do To break- that promise. " Dauber," said the Mate, "Drink, and turn in, man; why the hell d'ye wait?"
"Please, sir, I'm temperance." "Temperance are you, hey? That's all the more for me! So you're for slops? I thought you'd had enough slops for to-day. Go to your bunk and ease her when she drops. And-damme, steward! you brew with too much hops! Stir up the sugar, man!-and tell your girl How kind the Mate was teaching you to furl."
Then the Mate drank the remnants, six men's share And ramped into his cabin, where he stripped And danced unclad, and was uproarious there. In waltzes with the cabin cat he tripped. Singing in tenor clear that he was pipped, That "he who strove the tempest to disarm, Must never first embrail the lee yard-arm."
And that his name was Ginger. Dauber crept Back to the round-house, gripping by the rail. The wind howled by; the passionate water leapt; The night was all one roaring with the gale. Then at the door he stopped, uttering a wail; His hands were perished numb and blue as veins, He could not turn the knob for both the Spains.
A hand came shuffling aft, dodging the seas, Singing "her nut-brown hair" between his teeth; Taking the ocean's tumult at his case Even when the wash about his thighs did seethe. His soul was happy in its happy sheath; "What, Dauber, won't it open? Fingers cold? You'll talk of this time, Dauber, when you're old."
He flung the door half open, and a sea Washed them both in, over the splashboard, down; "You silly, salt miscarriage!" sputtered he. "Dauber, pull out the plug before we drown! That's spoiled my laces and my velvet gown. Where is the plug?" Groping in pitch dark water, He sang between his teeth "The Farmer's Daughter."
It was pitch dark within there; at each roll The chests slid to the slant; the water rushed, Making full many a clanging tin pan bowl Into the black below-bunks as it gushed. The dog-tired men slept through it; they were hushed. The water drained, and then with matches damp The man struck heads off till he lit the lamp.
"Thank you," the Dauber said; the seaman grinned. "This is your first foul weather?" "Yes," " I thought Up on the yard you hadn't seen much wind. Them's rotten sea-boots, Dauber, that you brought. Now I must cut on deck before I'm caught." He went; the lamp-flame smoked; he slammed the door; A film of water loitered across the floor.
The Dauber watched it come and watched it go; He had had revelation of the lies Cloaking the truth men never choose to know; He could bear witness now and cleanse their eyes. He had beheld in suffering; he was wise; This was the sea, this searcher of the soul, This never-dying shriek fresh from the Pole.
He shook with cold; his hands could not undo His oilskin buttons, so he shook and sat, Watching his dirty fingers, dirty blue, Hearing without the hammering tackle slat, Within, the drops from dripping clothes went pat, Running in little patters, gentle, sweet, And "Ai, ai!" went the wind, and the seas beat.
His bunk was sopping wet; he clambered in,
None of his clothes were dry; his fear recurred.
Cramps bunched the muscles underneath his skin.
The great ship rolled until the lamp was blurred.
He took his Bible and tried to read a word;
Trembled at going aloft again, and then
Resolved to fight it out and show it to men.
Faces recurred, fierce memories of the yard,
The frozen sail, the savage eyes, the jests,
The oaths of one great seaman, syphilis-scarred,
The tug of leeches jammed beneath their chests,
The buntlines bellying bunts out into breasts.
The deck so desolate-grey, the sky so wild,
He fell asleep, and slept like a young child.
But not for long; the cold awoke him soon,
The hot-ache and the skin-cracks and the cramp,
The seas thundering without, the gale's wild tune,
The sopping misery of the blankets damp.
A speaking-trumpet roared; a sea-boot's stamp
Clogged at the door. A man entered to shout:
"All hands on deck! Arouse here! Tumble out!"
The caller raised the lamp; his oilskins clicked
As the thin ice upon them cracked and fell.
"Rouse out!" he said. "This lamp is frozen wick'd.
Rouse out!" His accent deepened to a yell.
"We're among ice; it's blowing up like hell.
We're going to hand both topsails. Time, I guess,
We're sheeted up. Rouse out! Don't stay to dress!"
"Is it cold on deck?" said Dauber. "Is it cold?"
"We're sheeted up, I tell you, inches thick!"
The fo'c'sle's like a wedding-cake, I'm told.
Now tumble out, my sons; on deck here, quick!
Rouse Out, away, and come and climb the stick.
I'm going to call the half-deck. Bosun! Hey!
Both topsails coming in. Heave out! Away!"
He went; the Dauber tumbled from his bunk,
Clutching the side. He heard the wind go past,
Making the great ship wallow as if drunk.
There was a shocking tumult up the mast.
"This is the end," he muttered, "come at last!
I've got to go aloft, facing this cold.
I can't. I can't. I'll never keep my hold.
"I cannot face the topsail yard again.
I never guessed what misery it would be."
The cramps and hot-ache made him sick with pain.
The ship stopped suddenly from a devilish sea,
Then, with a triumph of wash, a rush of glee,
The door burst in, and in the water rolled,
Filling the lower bunks, black, creaming, cold.
The lamp sucked out. "Wash!" went the water back,
Then in again, flooding; the Bosun swore.
"You useless thing! You Dauber! You lee slack!
Get out, you heekapoota! Shut the door!
You coo-ilyaira, what are you waiting for?
Out of my way, you thing-you useless thing!"
He slammed the door indignant, clanging the ring.
And then he lit the lamp, drowned to the waist;
"Here's a fine house! Get at the scupper-holes"--
He bent against it as the water raced"--
And pull them out to leeward when she rolls.
They say some kinds of landsmen don't have souls.
I well believe. A Port Mahon baboon
Would make more soul than you got with a spoon."
Down in the icy water Dauber groped
To find the plug; the racing water sluiced
Over his head and shoulders as she sloped.
Without, judged by the sound, all hell was loosed.
He felt cold Death about him tightly noosed.
That Death was better than the misery there
Iced on the quaking foothold high in air.
And then the thought came: "I'm a failure.
All My life has been a failure. They were right.
It will not matter if I go and fall;
I should be free then from this hell's delight.
I'll never paint. Best let it end to-night.
I'll slip over the side. I've tried and failed."
So in the ice-cold in the night he quailed.
Death would be better, death, than this long hell
Of mockery and surrender and dismay
This long defeat of doing nothing well,
Playing the part too high for him to play.
"O Death! who hides the sorry thing away,
Take me; I've failed. I cannot play these cards.
There came a thundering from the topsail yards.
And then he bit his lips, clenching his mind,
And staggered out to muster, beating back
The coward frozen self of him that whined.
Come what cards might he meant to play the pack.
"Ai!" screamed the wind; the topsail sheet went clack;
Ice filled the air with spikes; the grey-backs burst.
"Here's Dauber," said the Mate, "on deck the first.
"Why, holy sailor, Dauber, you're a man!
I took you for a soldier. Up now, come!"
Up on the yards already they began
That battle with a gale which strikes men dumb.
The leaping topsail thundered like a drum.
The frozen snow beat in the face like shots.
The wind spun whipping wave-crests into clots.
So up upon the topsail yard again,
In the great tempest's fiercest hour, began
Probation to the Dauber's soul, of pain
Which crowds a century's torment in a span.
For the next month the ocean taught this man,
And he, in that month's torment, while she wested,
Was never warm nor dry, nor full nor rested
But still it blew, or, if it lulled, it rose
Within the hour and blew again; and still
The water as it burst aboard her froze.
The wind blew off an ice-field, raw and chill,
Daunting man's body, tampering with his will;
But after thirty days a ghostly sun
Gave sickly promise that the storms were done.
VII
A great grey sea was running up the sky,
Desolate birds flew past; their mewings came
As that lone water's spiritual cry,
Its forlorn voice, its essence, its soul's name.
The ship limped in the water as if lame.
Then in the forenoon watch to a great shout
More sail was made, the reefs were shaken out.
A slant came from the south; the singers stood
Clapped to the halliards, hauling to a tune,
Old as the sea, a fillip to the blood.
The upper topsail rose like a balloon.
"So long, Cape Stiff. In Valparaiso soon,"
Said one to other, as the ship lay over,
Making her course again-again a rover.
Slowly the sea went down as the wind fell.
Clear rang the songs, "Hurrah! Cape Horn is bet!"
The combless seas were lumping into swell;
The leaking fo'c'sles were no longer wet.
More sail was made; the watch on deck was set
To cleaning up the ruin broken bare
Below, aloft, about her, everywhere.
The Dauber, scrubbing out the roundhouse, found
Old pantiles pulped among the mouldy gear,
Washed underneath the bunks and long since drowned
During the agony of the Cape Horn year.
He sang in scrubbing, for he had done with fear--
Fronted the worst and looked it in the face;
He had got manhood at the testing-place.
Singing he scrubbed, passing his watch below,
Making the round-house fair; the Bosun watched,
Bringing his knitting slowly to the toe.
Sails stretched a mizen skysail which he patched;
They thought the Dauber was a bad egg hatched.
"Daubs," said the Bosun cheerly "can you knit?
I've made a Barney 's bull of this last bit."
Then, while the Dauber counted, Bosun took
Some marline from his pocket. "Here," he said,
"You want to know square sennit? So fash. Look!
Eight foxes take, and stop the ends with thread.
I've known an engineer would give his head
To know square sennit." As the Bose began,
The Dauber felt promoted into man.
It was his warrant that he had not failed--
That the most hard part in his difficult climb
Had not been past attainment; it was scaled:
Safe footing showed above the slippery slime.
He had emerged out of the iron time,
And knew that he could compass his life's scheme;
He had the power sufficient to his dream.
Then dinner came, and now the sky was blue.
The ship was standing north, the Horn was rounded;
She made a thundering as she weltered through.
The mighty grey-backs glittered as she bounded.
More sail was piled upon her; she was hounded
North, while the wind came; like a stag she ran
Over grey hills and hollows of seas wan.
She had a white bone in her mouth: she sped;
Those in the round-house watched her as they ate
Their meal of pork-fat fried with broken bread.
"Good old!" they cried. "She's off; she's gathering gait !"
Her track was whitening like a Lammas spate.
"Good old!" they cried. "Oh, give her cloth ! Hurray!
For three weeks more to Valparaiso Bay!
"She smells old Vallipo," the Bosun cried.
"We'll be inside the tier in three weeks more,
Lying at double-moorings where they ride
Off of the market, half a mile from shore,
And bumboat pan, my sons, and figs galore,
And girls in black mantillas fit to make a
Poor seaman frantic when they dance the cueca."
Eight bells were made, the watch was changed, and now
The Mate spoke to the Dauber: "This is better.
We'll soon be getting mudhooks over the bow.
She'll make her passage still if this'll let her.
Oh run, you drogher! Dip your fo'c'sle wetter.
Well, Dauber, this is better than Cape Horn.
Them topsails made you wish you'd not been born."
"Yes, sir," the Dauber said. "Now," said the Mate,
"We've got to smart her up. Them Cape Horn seas
Have made her paint-work like a rusty grate.
Oh, didn't them topsails make your fishhooks freeze?
A topsail don't pay heed to 'Won't you, please?'
Well, you have seen Cape Horn, my son; you've learned,
You've dipped your hand and had your fingers burned.
"And now you'll stow that folly, trying to paint.
You've had your lesson; you're a sailor now.
You come on board a female ripe to faint.
All sorts of slush you'd learned, the Lord knows how.
Cape Horn has sent you wisdom over the bow
If you've got sense to take it. You're a sailor.
My God! before you were a woman's tailor.
"So throw your paints to blazes and have done.
Words can't describe the silly things you did
Sitting before your easel in the sun,
With all your colours on the paint-box lid.
I blushed for you . . . and then the daubs you hid.
My God! you'll have more sense now, eh? You've quit?"
"No, sir." "You've not?" "No, sir." "God give you wit.
"I thought you'd come to wisdom." Thus they talked,
While the great clipper took her bit and rushed
Like a skin-glistening stallion not yet baulked,
Till fire-bright water at her swing ports gushed;
Poising and bowing down her fore-foot crushed
Bubble on glittering bubble; on she went
The Dauber watched her, wondering what it meant.
To come, after long months, at rosy dawn,
Into the placid blue of some great bay.
Treading the quiet waters like a fawn
Ere yet the morning haze was blown away.
A rose-flushed figure putting by the grey,
And anchoring there before the city smoke
Rose, or the church-bells rang, or men awoke.
And then, in the first light, to see grow clear
That long-expected haven filled with strangers--
Alive with men and women; see and hear
Its clattering market and its money-changers;
And hear the surf beat, and be free from dangers,
And watch the crinkled ocean blue with calm
Drowsing beneath the Trade, beneath the palm.
Hungry for that he worked; the hour went by,
And still the wind grew, still the clipper strode,
And now a darkness hid the western sky,
And sprays came flicking off at the wind's goad.
She stumbled now, feeling her sail a load.
The Mate gazed hard to windward, eyed his sail,
And said the Horn was going to flick her tail.
Boldly he kept it on her till she staggered,
But still the wind increased; it grew, it grew,
Darkening the sky, making the water haggard;
Full of small snow the mighty wester blew.
More fun for little fish-hooks," sighed the crew.
They eyed the taut topgallants stiff like steel;
A second hand was ordered to the wheel.
The Captain eyed her aft, sucking his lip,
Feeling the sail too much, but yet refraining
From putting hobbles on the leaping ship,
The glad sea-shattering stallion, halter-straining,
Wing-musical, uproarious, and complaining;
But, in a gust, he cocked his finger, so:
"You'd better take them off, before they go."
All saw. They ran at once without the word
"Lee-ay! Lee-ay!" Loud rang the clewline cries;
Sam in his bunk within the half-deck heard,
Stirred in his sleep, and rubbed his drowsy eyes.
"There go the lower to'gallants." Against the skies
Rose the thin bellying strips of leaping sail.
The Dauber was the first man over the rail.
Three to a mast they ran; it was a race.
"God!" said the Mate; "that Dauber, he can go."
He watched the runners with an upturned face
Over the futtocks, struggling heel to toe,
Up to the topmast cross-trees into the blow
Where the three sails were leaping. "Dauber wins!"
The yards were reached, and now the race begins.
Which three will furI their sail first and come down?
Out to the yard-arm for the leech goes one,
His halt blown flagwise from a hatless crown,
His hands at work like fever to be done.
Out of the gale a fiercer fury spun.
The three sails leaped together, yanking high,
Like talons darting up to clutch the sky.
The Dauber on the fore-topgallant yard
Out at the weather yard-arm was the first
To lay his hand upon the buntline-barred
Topgallant yanking to the wester's burst;
He craned to catch the leech-, his comrades cursed;
One at the buntlines, one with oaths observed,
"The eye of the outer jib-stay isn't served."
"No," said the Dauber. "No," the man replied.
They heaved, stowing the sail, not looking round,
Panting, but full of life and eager-eyed;
The gale roared at them with its iron sound.
"That's you," the Dauber said. His gasket wound
Swift round the yard, binding the sail in bands-,
There came a gust, the sail leaped from his hands,
So that he saw it high above him, grey,
And there his mate was failing; quick he clutched
An arm in oilskins swiftly snatched away.
A voice said "Christ!" a quick shape stooped and touched,
Chain struck his hands, ropes shot, the sky was smutched
With vast black fires that ran, that fell, that furled,
And then he saw the mast, the small snow hurled,
The fore-topgallant yard far, far aloft,
And blankness settling on him and great pain;
And snow beneath his fingers wet and soft,
And topsail sheet-blocks shaking at the chain.
He knew it was he who had fallen; then his brain
Swirled in a circle while he watched the sky.
Infinite multitudes of snow blew by.
"I thought it was Tom who fell," his brain's voice said.
"Down on the bloody deck!" the Captain screamed.
The multitudinous little snow-flakes sped.
His pain was real enough, but all else seemed..
Si with a bucket ran, the water gleamed
Tilting upon him; others came, the Mate . . .
They knelt with eager eyes like things that wait
For other things to come. He saw them there.
"It will go on," he murmured, watching Si.
Colours and sounds seemed mixing in the air,
The pain was stunning him, and the wind went by.
"More water," said the Mate. "Here, Bosun, try.
Ask if he's got a message. Hell, he's gone!
Here, Dauber, paints." He said, "It will go on."
Not knowing his meaning rightly, but he spoke
With the intenseness of a fading soul
Whose share of Nature's fire turns to smoke,
Whose hand on Nature's wheel loses control.
The eager faces glowered red like coal.
They glowed, the great storm glowed, the sails, the mast.
"It will go on," he cried aloud, and passed.
Those from the yard came down to telll the tale.
"He almost had me off, said Tom. "He slipped.
There come one hell of a jump-like from the sail. . .
He clutched at me and almost had me pipped.
He caught my 'ris'band, but the oilskin ripped.
It tore clean off. Look here. I was near gone.
I made a grab to catch him; so did John.
"I caught his arm. My God! I was near done.
He almost had me over; it was near.
He hit the ropes and grabbed at every one."
"Well," said the Mate, "we cannot leave him here.
Run, Si, and get the half-deck table clear.
We'll lay him there. Catch hold there, you, and you,
He's dead, poor son; there's nothing more to do."
Night fell, and all night long the Dauber lay
Covered upon the table; all night long
The pitiless storm exulted at her prey,
Huddling the waters with her icy thong.
But to the covered shape she did no wrong.
He lay beneath the sailcloth. Bell by bell
The night wore through; the stars rose, the stars fell.
Blowing most pitiless cold out of clear sky
The wind roared all night long; and all night through
The green seas on the deck went washing by,
Flooding the half-deck; bitter hard it blew.
But little of it all the Dauber knew-
The sopping bunks, the floating chests, the wet,
The darkness, and the misery, and the sweat.
He was off duty. So it blew all night,
And when the watches changed the men would come
Dripping within the door to strike a light
And stare upon the Dauber lying dumb,
And say, "He come a cruel thump, poor chum."
Or, "He'd a-been a fine big man;" or, "He. . .
A smart young seaman he was getting to be."
Or, "Damn it all, it's what we've all to face!
I knew another fellow one time . . ." then
Came a strange tale of death in a strange place
Out on the sea, in ships, with wandering men.
In many ways Death puts us into pen.
The reefers came down tired and looked and slept.
Below the skylight little dribbles crept
Along the painted woodwork, glistening, slow,
Following the roll and dripping, never fast,
But dripping on the quiet form below,
Like passing time talking to time long past.
And all night long "Ai, ai!" went the wind's blast,
And creaming water swished below the pale,
Unheeding body stretched beneath the sail.
At dawn they sewed him up, and at eight bells
They bore him to the gangway, wading keep,
Through the green-clutching, white-toothed water-hells
That flung his carriers over in their sweep.
They laid an old red ensign on the heap,
And all hands stood bare-headed, stooping, swaying,
Washed by the sea while the old man was praying
Out of a borrowed prayer-book. At a sign
They twitched the ensign back and tipped the grating
A creamier bubbling broke the bubbling brine.
The muffled figure tilted to the weighting;
It dwindled slowly down, slowly gyrating.
Some craned to see; it dimmed, it disappeared;
The last green milky bubble blinked and cleared.
Mister, shake out your reefs," the Captain called.
"Out topsail reefs!" the Mate cried; then all hands
Hurried, the great sails shook, and all hands hauled,
Singing that desolate song of lonely lands,
Of how a lover came in dripping bands,
Green with the wet and cold, to tell his lover
That Death was in the sea, and all was over.
Fair came the falling wind; a seaman said
The Dauber was a Jonah; once again
The clipper held her course, showing red lead,
Shattering the sea-tops into golden rain.
The waves bowed down before her like blown grain;
Onwards she thundered, on; her voyage was short,
Before the tier's bells rang her into port.
Cheerly they rang her in, those beating bells,
The new-come beauty stately from the sea,
Whitening the blue heave of the drowsy swells,
Treading the bubbles down. With three times three
They cheered her moving beauty in, and she
Came to her berth so noble, so superb,
Swayed like a queen, and answered to the curb.
Then in the sunset's flush they went aloft,
And unbent sails in that most lovely hour,
When the light gentles and the wind is soft,
And beauty in the heart breaks like a flower.
Working aloft they saw the mountain tower,
Snow to the peak; they heard the launch-men shout;
And bright along the bay the lights came out.
And then the night fell dark, and all night long
The pointed mountain pointed at the stars,
Frozen, alert, austere; the eagle's song
Screamed from her desolate screes and splintered scars.
On her intense crags where the air is sparse
The stars looked down; their many golden eyes
Watched her and burned, burned out, and came to rise.
Silent the finger of the summit stood,
Icy in pure, thin air, glittering with snows.
Then the sun's coming turned the peak to blood,
And in the rest-house the muleteers arose.
And all day long, where only the eagle goes,
Stones, loosened by the sun, fall; the stones falling
Fill empty gorge on gorge with echoes calling.
End
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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