The Seven Seas Part 5

We've drunk to the Queen--G.o.d bless her!-- We've drunk to our mothers' land; We've drunk to our English brother (And we hope he'll understand).

We've drunk as much as we're able, And the Cross swings low to the morn; Last toast--and your foot on the table!-- A health to the Native-born!

_A health to the Native-born, (Stand up!) We're six white men arow, All bound to sing o' the little things we care about, All bound to fight for the little things we care about With the weight of a six-fold blow!

By the might of our cable-tow, (Take hands!) From the Orkneys to the Horn, All round the world (and a little loop to pull it by), All round the world (and a little strap to buckle it), A health to the Native-born!_

THE KING.

"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said; "With bone well carved he went away, Flint arms the ign.o.ble arrowhead, And jasper tips the spear to-day.

Changed are the G.o.ds of Hunt and Dance, And he with these. Farewell, Romance!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; "We lift the weight of flatling years; The caverns of the mountain side Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.

Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell, Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke; "By sleight of sword we may not win, But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke Of arquebus and culverin.

Honour is lost, and none may tell Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried; "Our keels ha' lain with every sea; The dull-returning wind and tide Heave up the wharf where we would be; The known and noted breezes swell Our trudging sail. Romance, farewell!"

"Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said; "He vanished with the coal we burn; Our dial marks full steam ahead, Our speed is timed to half a turn.

Sure as the tidal trains we ply 'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!"

"Romance!" the Season-tickets mourn, "_He_ never ran to catch his train, But pa.s.sed with coach and guard and horn-- And left the local--late again!

Confound Romance!"... And all unseen Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.

His hand was on the lever laid, His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks, His whistle waked the s...o...b..und grade, His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks; In dock and deep and mine and mill The Boy-G.o.d reckless laboured still.

Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell, Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, With unconsidered miracle, Hedged in a backward-gazing world; Then taught his chosen bard to say: "The King was with us--yesterday!"

THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS.

_Away by the lands of the j.a.panee, When the paper lanterns glow And the crews of all the s.h.i.+pping drink In the house of Blood Street Joe, At twilight, when the landward breeze Brings up the harbour noise, And ebb of Yokohama Bay Swigs chattering through the buoys, In Cisco's Dewdrop Dining Rooms They tell the tale anew Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight, When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light And the Stralsund fought the two!_

Now this is the Law of the Muscovite, that he proves with shot and steel, When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye must not take the seal, Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves, And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin and the seal they breed for themselves; For when the _matkas_ seek the sh.o.r.e to drop their pups aland, The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroaring, band by band; And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath, The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path.

Then dark they lie and stark they lie--rookery, dune, and floe, And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow.

And G.o.d who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe, He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the lemming on the snow.

But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear, The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year.

English they be and j.a.panee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank, And some be Scot, but the worst, G.o.d wot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank!

It was the sealer Northern Light, to the Smoky Seas she bore.

With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore.

(Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light--oh! they were birds of a feather-- Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!) And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein, But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin.

There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur, When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her.

The Baltic called her men and weighed--she could not choose but run-- For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun (And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and s.h.i.+p And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip).

She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins, And the Northern Light sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins.

They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear, When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near.

Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed--three of them, black, abeam, And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam.

There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free, And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.

(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian law To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw!) They had not run a mile from sh.o.r.e--they heard no shots behind-- When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind: "Bluffed--raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall, You must set a thief to catch a thief--and a thief has caught us all!

By every b.u.t.t in Oregon and every spar in Maine, The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine!

He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, and, faith, he has faked her well-- But I'd know the Stralsund's deckhouse yet from here to the booms o'

h.e.l.l.

Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier, But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here-- The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our seal With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal!

Ring and blow for the Baltic now, and head her back to the bay, For we'll come into the game again with a double deck to play!"

They rang and blew the sealers' call--the poaching cry o' the sea-- And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an angry s.h.i.+p was she: And blind they groped through the whirling white, and blind to the bay again, Till they heard the creak of the Stralsund's boom and the clank of her mooring-chain.

They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts, And: "Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?"

A dog-toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine, and bared his flenching knife.

"Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life; But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see, And there's never a law of G.o.d or man runs north of Fifty-Three.

So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill, And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill."

Answered the snap of a closing lock and the jar of a gun-b.u.t.t slid, But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did.

The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak, And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke.

The bullets bit on bend and b.u.t.t, the splinter slivered free, (Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!) The thick smoke hung and would not s.h.i.+ft, leaden it lay and blue, But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew.

An arm's length out and overside the banked fog held them bound; But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound.

For one cried out on the name of G.o.d, and one to have him cease; And the questing volley found them both and bade them hold their peace.

And one called out on a heathen joss and one on the Virgin's Name; And the schooling bullet leaped across and showed them whence they came.

And in the waiting silences the rudder whined beneath, And each man drew his watchful breath slow taken 'tween the teeth-- Trigger and ear and eye ac.o.c.k, knit brow and hard-drawn lips-- Bracing his feet by chock and cleat for the rolling of the s.h.i.+ps: Till they heard the cough of a wounded man that fought in the fog for breath, Till they heard the torment of Reuben Paine that wailed upon his death:

"The tides they'll go through Fundy Race but I'll go never more And see the hogs from ebb-tide mark turn scampering back to sh.o.r.e.

No more I'll see the trawlers drift below the Ba.s.s Rock ground, Or watch the tall Fall steamer lights tear blazing up the Sound.

Sorrow is me, in a lonely sea and a sinful fight I fall, But if there's law o' G.o.d or man you'll swing for it yet, Tom Hall!"

Tom Hall stood up by the quarter-rail. "Your words in your teeth,"

said he.

"There's never a law of G.o.d or man runs north of Fifty Three.

So go in grace with Him to face, and an ill-spent life behind, And I'll take care o' your widows, Rube, as many as I shall find."

A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a warlock Finn was he, And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's-breadth over the knee.

Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath, "You'll wait a little, Rube," he said, "the Devil has called for both.

The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close, And we'll go up to the Wrath of G.o.d as the holluschickie goes.

O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles by, We've fought our fight, and the best are down. Let up and let us die!

Quit firing, by the bow there--quit! Call off the Baltic's crew!

You're sure of h.e.l.l as me or Rube--but wait till we get through."

There went no word between the s.h.i.+ps, but thick and quick and loud The life-blood drummed on the dripping decks, with the fog-dew from the shroud, The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to gunnel laid, And they felt the sheerstrakes pound and clear, but never a word was said.

Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit pa.s.sed: "Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last?

Curse on her work that has nipped me here with a s.h.i.+fty trick unkind-- I have gotten my death where I got my bread, but I dare not face it blind.

Curse on the fog! Is there never a wind of all the winds I knew To clear the smother from off my chest, and let me look at the blue?"

The good fog heard--like a splitten sail, to left and right she tore, And they saw the sun-dogs in the haze and the seal upon the sh.o.r.e.