Collected Poems Volume II Part 5

VIII

There was never a dale in our isle so deep That her wide wings were not free To soar to the sovran heights and keep Sight of the rolling sea: Is it there, is it here in the rolling skies, The realm of her future fame?

Look once, look once in her glittering eyes, Ye shall find her the same, the same.

_Up to the sides with the hawk, the hawk, As it was in the days of old!

Ye shall sail once more, ye shall soar, ye shall soar To the new-found realms of gold._

IX

She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds Thro' the ringing English dells, For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state, To the music of golden bells; A queen's fair fingers have drawn the hood And tossed her aloft in the blue, A white hand eager for needless blood; I hunt for the needs of two.

_Yet I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk!

Who knoweth my pitiless breast?

Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?

Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

X

Who fas.h.i.+oned her wide and splendid eyes That have stared in the eyes of kings?

With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist: She has clawed at their jewelled rings!

Who flung her first thro' the crimson dawn To pluck him a prey from the skies, When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn In the valleys of Paradise?

_Who fas.h.i.+oned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast?

Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind's way?

Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

XI

Is there ever a song in all the world Shall say how the quest began With the beak and the wings that have made us kings And cruel--almost--as man?

The wild wind whimpers across the heath Where the sad little tufts of blue And the red-stained grey little feathers of death Flutter! _Who fas.h.i.+oned us? Who?

Who fas.h.i.+oned the scimitar wings of the hawk, Bent beak and arrowy breast?

Who watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way?

Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._

XII

Linnet and woodp.e.c.k.e.r, red-cap and jay, Shriek that a doom shall fall One day, one day, on my pitiless way From the sky that is over us all; But the great blue hawk of the heavens above Fas.h.i.+oned the world for his prey,-- King and queen and hawk and dove, We shall meet in his clutch that day; _Shall I not welcome him, I, the hawk?

Yea, cry, as they shrink from his claw, Cry, as I die, to the unknown sky, Life, I follow thy law!_

XIII

_Chorus--_ _s.h.i.+ps have swept with my conquering name ..._ Over the world and beyond, Hark! Bellerophon, Marlborough, Thunderer, Condor, respond!-- _On the blistered decks of their dread renown, In the rush of my storm-beat wings, Hawkins and Hawke went sailing down To the glory of deep-sea kings!

By the storm-beat wings of the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast, They clove their way thro' the red sea-fray!

Who wakens me now to the quest._

THE ADMIRAL'S GHOST

I tell you a tale to-night Which a seaman told to me, With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light And a voice as low as the sea.

You could almost hear the stars Twinkling up in the sky, And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars, And the same old waves went by,

Singing the same old song As ages and ages ago, While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night With the things that he seemed to know.

A bare foot pattered on deck; Ropes creaked; then--all grew still, And he pointed his finger straight in my face And growled, as a sea-dog will.

"Do' ee know who Nelson was?

That pore little shrivelled form With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve And a soul like a North Sea storm?

"Ask of the Devons.h.i.+re men!

They know, and they'll tell you true; He wasn't the pore little chawed-up chap That Hardy thought he knew.

"He wasn't the man you think!

His patch was a dern disguise!

For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see, If they looked him in both his eyes.

"He was twice as big as he seemed; But his clothes were cunningly made.

He'd both of his hairy arms all right!

The sleeve was a trick of the trade.

"You've heard of sperrits, no doubt; Well, there's more in the matter than that!

But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve, And he wasn't the laced c.o.c.ked-hat.

"_Nelson was just--a Ghost!_ You may laugh! But the Devons.h.i.+re men They knew that he'd come when England called, And they know that he'll come again.

"I'll tell you the way it was (For none of the landsmen know), And to tell it you right, you must go a-starn Two hundred years or so.

"The waves were lapping and slapping The same as they are to-day; And Drake lay dying aboard his s.h.i.+p In Nombre Dios Bay.

"The scent of the foreign flowers Came floating all around; 'But I'd give my soul for the smell o' the pitch,'

Says he, 'in Plymouth Sound.'

"'What shall I do,' he says, 'When the guns begin to roar, An' England wants me, and me not there To shatter 'er foes once more?'

"(You've heard what he said, maybe, But I'll mark you the p'ints again; For I want you to box your compa.s.s right And get my story plain.)

"'You must take my drum,' he says, 'To the old sea-wall at home; And if ever you strike that drum,' he says, 'Why, strike me blind, I'll come!

"'If England needs me, dead Or living, I'll rise that day!

I'll rise from the darkness under the sea Ten thousand miles away.'

"That's what he said; and he died, An' his pirates, listenin' roun', With their crimson doublets and jewelled swords That flashed as the sun went down,