Were heard the intermingled sounds
Of axes and of mallets, plied
With vigorous arms on every side;
Plied so deftly and so well,
That, ere the shadows of evening fell, 135
The keel of oak for a noble ship,
Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong,
Was lying ready, and stretched along
The blocks, well placed upon the slip.
Happy, thrice happy, every one 140
Who sees his labor well begun,
And not perplexed and multiplied,
By idly waiting for time and tide!
And when the hot, long day was o’er,
The young man at the Master’s door 145
Sat with the maiden calm and still,
And within the porch, a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales, 150
Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again,
The chance and change of a sailor’s life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,
His roving fancy, like the wind, 155
That nothing can stay and nothing can bind,
And the magic charm of foreign lands,
With shadows of palms, and shining sands,
Where the tumbling surf,
O’er the coral reefs of Madagascar, 160
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.
And the trembling maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery, 165
The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides and yet unites mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume
The silent group in the twilight gloom, 170
And thoughtful faces, as in a dream;
And for a moment one might mark
What had been hidden by the dark,
That the head of the maiden lay at rest,
Tenderly, on the young man’s breast! 175
Day by day the vessel grew,
With timbers fashioned strong and true,
Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,
Till, framed with perfect symmetry,
A skeleton ship rose up to view! 180
And around the bows and along the side
The heavy hammers and mallets plied,
Till after many a week, at length,
Wonderful for form and strength,
Sublime in its enormous bulk, 185
Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!
And around it columns of smoke, upwreathing,
Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething
Caldron, that glowed,
And overflowed 190
With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.
And amid the clamors
Of clattering hammers,
He who listened heard now and then
The song of the Master and his men: — 195
“Build me straight, O worthy Master,
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!”
With oaken brace and copper band, 200
Lay the rudder on the sand,
That, like a thought, should have control
Over the movement of the whole;
And near it the anchor, whose giant hand
Would reach down and grapple with the land, 205
And immovable and fast
Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!
And at the bows an image stood,
By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind 210
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master’s daughter! 215
On many a dreary and misty night,
‘T will be seen by the rays of the signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark, 220
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!
Behold, at last,
Each tall and tapering mast
Is swung into its place; 225
Shrouds and stays
Holding it firm and fast!
Long ago,
In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain 230
Lay the snow,
They fell, — those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
‘Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers, 235
Panting beneath the goad,
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And naked and bare, 240
To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar
Would remind them forevermore
Of their native forests they should not see again. 245
And everywhere
The slender, graceful spars
Poise aloft in the air,
And at the mast-head,
White, blue, and red, 250
A flag unrolls the stripes and stars.
Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless,
In foreign harbors shall behold
That flag unrolled,
‘T will be as a friendly hand 255
Stretched out from his native land,
Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless!
All is finished! and at length
Has come the bridal day
Of beauty and of strength. 260
To-day the vessel shall be launched!
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o’er the bay,
Slowly, in all his splendors dight,
The great sun rises to behold the sight. 265
The ocean old,
Centuries old,
Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,
Up and down the sands of gold. 270
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,
With ceaseless flow,
His bread of snow
Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 275
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,
With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honor of her marriage day, 280
Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,
Ready to be
The bride of the gray old sea.
On the deck another bride 285
Is standing by her lover’s side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sudden fleck,
Fall around them on the deck. 290
The prayer is said,
The service read,
The joyous bridegroom bows his head;
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son, 295
Kisses his daughter’s glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster
Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor — 300
The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock —
Spake, with accents mild and clear, 305
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom’s ear.
He knew the chart
Of the sailor’s heart,
All its pleasures and its griefs, 310
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,
And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course. 315
Therefore he spake, and thus said he: —
“Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats and swings the horizon’s bound, 320
Seems at its distant rim to rise
And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,
As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea, 325
It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves
That rock and rise
With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies, 330
Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true
To the toil and the task we have to do, 335
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach
The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,
Will be those of joy and not of fear!”
Then the Master, 340
With a gesture of command,
Waved his hand;
And at the word,
Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below, 345
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel, 350
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean’s arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 355
That to the ocean seemed to say,
“Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!”
How beautiful she is! How fair 360
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer! 365
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity 370
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o’er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives 375
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years, 380
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 385
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
‘T is of the wave and not the rock;
‘T is but the flapping of the sail, 390
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 395
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee, — are all with thee!
Seaweed
WHEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges, 5
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
From Bermuda’s reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing, 10
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides; 15
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas; —
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting 20
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion 25
Strike the ocean
Of the poet’s soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song: 30
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian 35
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, 40
Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate; —
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart; 45
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
Chrysaor
In the first edition of The Seaside and the Fireside this poem bore the title of The Evening Star.
JUST above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows fainter and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely, a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.
Into the ocean faint and far 5
Falls the trail of its golden splendor,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.
Chrysaor, rising out of the sea,
Showed thus glorious and thus emulous, 10
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoë,
Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.
Thus o’er the ocean faint and far
Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly;
Is it a God, or is it a star 15
That, entranced, I gaze on nightly!
The Secret of the Sea
AH! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
All my dreams, come back to me.
Sails of silk and ropes of sandal, 5
Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
; And the answer from the shore!
Most of all, the Spanish ballad
Haunts me oft, and tarries long, 10
Of the noble Count Arnaldos
And the sailor’s mystic song.
Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence, 15
Flow its unrhymed lyric lines; —
Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,
Steering onward to the land; — 20
How he heard the ancient helmsman
Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
Poised upon the mast to hear,
Till his soul was full of longing, 25
And he cried, with impulse strong, —
“Helmsman! for the love of heaven,
Teach me, too, that wondrous song!”
“Wouldst thou,” — so the helmsman answered,
“Learn the secret of the sea? 30
Only those who brave its dangers
Comprehend its mystery!”
In each sail that skims the horizon,
In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley, 35
Hear those mournful melodies;
Till my soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me. 40
Twilight
THE TWILIGHT is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.
But in the fisherman’s cottage 5
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.
Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes 10
Were looking into the darkness
To see some form arise.
And a woman’s waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling, 15
Now bowing and bending low.
What tale do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child? 20
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 31
