The Ballad of the Forty-Year
One, men saw for an honest man
And one they saw for a buccaneer,
But no man knew when the hunt began,
Lost in the haze of the Forty-Year.
Friends were they ere the Forty-Year,
Boys together and merry twain;
Youth was on them and Youth was dear
Till Love came by to molest his reign.
One was gay, and he stole the maid,
In the dark of the moon he bore her far,
And the grave one followed them down the glade
And tracked them close by star and star.
He caught them by the yellow sea-shore,
To light the rivals the dawn did rise,
And the grave man’s love the gay one bore,
And love for her captor lighted her eyes.
They fought with knives and the captor bled
So he called on her who was loved of each,
And she sheathed the blow that would stretch him dead,
And slain she lay on the pallid beach.
The victor gazed for deep and long,
Kneeling beside them, his love and friend;
And the vanquished swore to right the wrong
Ten hells for one, at the other end.
And the victor saw the lovelight glow
Deep in her eyes, a wondrous flame,
And the word her dying lips crooned low
Was heard of him for his rival’s name.
The victor looked on her dead, dear face
And hied him off at the dawn of day;—
But the vanquished kissed her lips for grace,
And side by her side he swooned away.
——————
The victor hied him where brave men be
And turned his trick at the wheel of trade;
Many the merchant he steered to sea,—
Free wi’ his liquor and free wi’ a maid.
He sailed the seas from Pole to Pole,
An honest captain, as all men knew,
But he drowned in sin his hidden soul
To cheat his Master out of His due.
But the vanquished set him upon his trail
And tracked him over the world and gone,
And year by year he fared to fail,
Yet tracked and hoped by dawn and dawn.
The vanquished got him a pirate keel
And wreaked his hate on the merchant-kin
Of the one who fled from his sleepless steel,—
And shuddered the earth at his open sin.
He whipt the seas in a blind black ship
That wrought its woes ’twixt tide and tide,—
For the Forty-Year he touched no lip
Save only that of his dying bride.
The deep is cruel, and danger naught,
And life is lightly of tempest held;
The Forty-Year their manhood bought,
By the axe of Time was their vigor felled.
And syne the tracker’s heart is woe,
And the Forty-Year but mocks his ire,—
Yet zone by zone his lean sails go
Till the gilded east meets the western fire.
And the Forty-Year befogged his brain
Fettered his hand and clogged his feet,
And he saw the Past as a wraith of rain ...
And they met by noon on the open street.
Now knew they both what man was there,
And cared they not what Hand had led,
And the tracker lifted his eyes in prayer,
And the tracked man found his voice and said:
“Now here is my breast and here the knife,
But hear my word, my last in life,
And there above is Heaven’s dome,
And then ye may hurry the hot blade home.
“Now the Forty-Year is sped and past
And glad am I to behold your face,
To flee no more from fear at last,
To hug the dagger that ends the race.
“For I have died a thousandfold,
Stabbed have I been by a million blades,
’Tis worse than death to see the gold
That crowns the heads of living maids,
“To see and know that mine I slew,
So that nevermore might she greet the day,—
In all my life hath no man been true,
For the scourge I bear drives Truth away.
“Friends have I sought by like or lure,
And begged their hands in fellowship,
And felt their stabs, than steel more sure,
The scorn that curls the sneering lip;
“So never a friend have I known to love,
And never a love have I known to keep,
Now grip this life I am weary of,
And stab me down to a dreamless sleep!”
The tracker thought of the crimson path
For the Forty-Year his feet had trod,
And he saw the wreck that was left of wrath,
Purged by the flame of the Wrath of God.
“Take up your life and go your way,
No judge am I to fill your bier,
Wait ye the call of Judgment Day!”
This is the tale of the Forty-Year.