The buccaneer book: Songs of the black flag

by Alden Charles Noble

Marooned

In all the earth

There is no thing except the sand, and me.

An endless bleaching yellowness lies here

Subject to silence and the silent Sun.

The sand has no beginning, neither end;

Around the isle have I sought end for it

And have found none, and when the wind is high

Even my footprints have been blown away

That marked one circuit ere I made the next.

Sometimes I curse the sea, but all the time

I know that she is guiltless, and I know

That she is kinder than the soulless sand,

For in the end she shall be good to me,

Embrace me tired within her mother-arms

And so shall give me peace. Yet still I curse

Her, for her luring brought me unto this:

Had she not called me those long summer nights

With soft seductive cadence and sweet words

I should not now be waiting here for death.

Life is a ceaseless hunt for turtle’s eggs.

(O humorous employment!) Day on day

I rise up in the crimson morn and see

The red irrevocable Sun rise too

Out of the eastern wave. All day I watch

Him slowly travel his unyielding path,

Hating him all the while, yet hating more

The sullen gloom of twilight that his fall

Forces the world to wear.... All through the day

I search the stolid sand for what may be

Of life that lies where turtles lay before;

For if today I have enough, tomorrow

Demands relentless meed, and thus I live,

Loathing the living, yet afraid to die.

How often have I tried to end it all!

So often have I failed. I, who was known

Wide as a living terror of red death,

Whom countless victims of my sword have cursed

Dying,—I am afraid to kill myself.

I have lain down and bade goodbye to earth,

Glared at the jeering sea and mocking sand,

Taken my dagger by its jade-green hilt,

Looked on the edge that was to drink my blood,

Loosened the shirt upon my breast, and there

Fumbled with grey unfeeling finger-tips

To find the proper rib, have placed the point

Sharp on the spot, have closed my eyes and laid

My left arm down beside me, clutched the dagger,—

And felt the end with thrice ten thousand pangs.

Yet always at the first fierce prick of death

Trembling I snatch the blue unwilling blade

Off from my breast and fling it far away

Hoping that I may lose it, and not know

Such torture more.... And after wide-eyed night,

I have crept back at the first streak of dawn

And sought about the drifted, smitten sand

To find the blade that is my only friend,

And kissed it when I found it.... Suicides

Men brand as cowards; they are more brave than I.

For death would be so quiet. I should hear

Not even the surges beat upon the reef.

I am so far from all the living world

I know the natural vultures come not here;

So would my body lie unpicked and still

Until the Sun had bleached it all away.

Time has unfolded to me many things ...

I am more wise than when I came: I know

That it is folly to upbraid the Sun

For he can take no harm of it; ’tis folly

To rush each morning to the barren cliff

O’erlooking all the ocean, and to scan

The bare horizon for a sail,—because

There is no sail on this side of the earth.

’Tis mad to hope—and surely Hope is dead?

I have killed hope so many aching days,

By myriad hopeless nights has she been slain,

Till I have learned that she is really dead....

And yet, and yet,—she has a terrible ghost!

I have learned too that it is very mad

To rail at Fate, or at the sea or sand,

To curse the coming in or going out

Of days like, each to each. It is in vain

That I do keep my dagger sharp and bright

For I shall never sheathe it in his breast.

I dread the stubborn days’ relentless round,

The dazzling sunlight on the waves that dance

To mock my soul that shall not dance again;

The days are twice as long as may be borne,

Yet must be borne. Sometimes I even laugh

To see how small a thing a man’s life is.

The nights are loneliest. The buoyant stars

May rove across the heavens. I must lie

Flat on my back and watch them; I alone

Must live in one small corner of the world.

There is a tavern in a place I knew,

Kept by a shrew, a veritable hag,—

I cannot even wander in her door,—

How sweet to me her railing now would sound.

I fear the nights ... for then comes Memory.

I am more brave when I forget to think.

... O Love, your eyes shine for me in the night.

I taste the perfume of your last caress,

The last, long, throbbing kissing of your mouth.

Your “I love thee” is magic in my ear

To mingle with the surf upon the shore.

I have lived the life of every man in mine.

I have been sullen as a convict is,

I have been sad as any maid in love,

I have outgibed the mad loud mirth of fools,

I have been happy as a little child,

Have grown religious, touched philosophy,

Have in a breath blasphemed and laughed and wept.

Yet all moods pass. The sea is just the same,

And I am grown old looking on its face.

I know that every wave that laps the strand

Is like to every other wave that comes,

As many follow this one, as the last.

I say my prayers to him, because I know

Somehow that wheresoever he may be

He is awake and hears me. It is sweet

To call around his head the flames of hell,—

It is my only pleasure. And he hears

Across the gulf of time, and in his turn

Curses my hate that will not let him sleep.

The Sun is falling low. Upon the earth

There is no thing except the sand, and me.