Walking Shadows: Sea Tales and Others

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1918, by Alfred Noyes
Copyright, 1918, by Frederick A. Stokes Company
All Rights Reserved
Of those who fought and died Unreckoned, undescried, Breaking no hearts but two or three that loved them; Of multitudes that gave Their memories to the grave, And the unrevealing seas of night removed them;
Of those unnumbered hosts Who smile at all our boasts And are not blazed on any scroll of glory; Mere out-posts in the night, Mere keepers of the light, Where history stops, let shadows weave a story.
Shadows, but ah, they know That history's pomp and show Are shadows of a shadow, gilt and painted. They see the accepted lie In robes of state go by. They see the prophet stoned, the trickster sainted.
And so my shadows turn To truths that they discern Beyond the ordered facts that fame would cherish. They walk awhile with dreams, They follow flying gleams And lonely lights at sea that pass and perish.
Not tragic all indeed, Not all without remede Of clean-edged mirth. Our Rosalie of laughter, The bayonet of a jest, May pierce the devil's breast, And give us room and time for grief, here-after.
So let them weep or smile Or kneel, or dance awhile, Fantastic shades, by wandering fires begotten; Remembrancers of themes That dawn may mock as dreams. Then let them sleep, at dawn, with the forgotten.
The position of a light-house keeper, in a sea infested by submarines, is a peculiar one; but Peter Ramsay, keeper of the Hatchets' Light , had reasons for feeling that his lonely tower, six miles from the mainland, was the happiest habitation in the world.
At five o'clock, on a gusty October afternoon, of the year 1916, Peter had just finished his tea and settled down, with a pipe and the last number of the British Weekly , for five minutes' reading, before he turned to the secret of his happiness again. Precisely at this moment, the Commander of the U-99, three miles away to the north, after making sure through his periscope that there were no patrol boats in the vicinity, rose to the surface, and began to look for the Hatchets' . He, too, had reasons for wishing to get inside the light-house, if only for half an hour. It was possible only by trickery; but he thought it might be done under cover of darkness, and he was about to reconnoiter.