“AS BESEEMETH MEN”
We heard her a mile to west’ard—the liner that
cut us through—
As crushing the fog at a twenty-jog she drove
with her double screw.
We heard her a mile to west’ard as she bel-
lowed to clear her path,
The grum, grim grunt of her whistle, a levia-
than’s growl of wrath.
We could tell she was aimed to smash us, so
we clashed at our little bell,
But the sound was shredded by screaming wind
and we simply rung our knell.
And the feeble breath, that screamed at Death
through our horn, was beaten back,
And we knew that doom rode up the sea to-
ward the shell of our tossing smack.
Then out of the fog she thundered, the liner,
smashing to east;
Her green and her red glared overhead and her
bows were spouting yeast.
The eyes of her reddened hawse-holes, her
dripping and towering flanks,
Flashed with no gleam of mercy for her quarry
on the Banks.
She scornfully spurned us under, the while her
whistle brayed,
Nor heeded the crash of our little craft nor the
feeble chirp we made;
And as down we swept, her folk that slept—
they slumbered serenely still,
And even the lookout on the bridge scarce felt
the thud and thrill.
But they jangled her bells and halted; and the
sullen sea they swept
With the goggling gleam of the searchlight’s
beam. A dozen of us had crept
On the mass of the tangled wreckage she con-
temptuously had tossed
A mile astern in the chop and churn. The
others were drowned—were lost!
There was never a whine nor whimper, only
some muttered groans,
As the ocean buffeted martyrs who clung there
with shattered bones,
And those whose grip was broken as the surge
reeled creaming high,
Went out from the ken of the searchlight with
a hoarse but brave “Good-by.”
In the great white light no sign of fright stole
wrinkling o’er a face,
For the men of the Banks know How to die
when Davy trumps their ace.
And better than simply dying—they can cheer-
fully, bravely give
Life, heart, and head in a comrade’s stead if
they deem that he ought to live.
For there in the searchlight’s glory, the night
that they cut us down,
Old Injun Joe gave up his cask that another
might not drown.
Old Joe was a lone world-rover, the other had
babes on land;
No word was said, but Joe went down with a
wave of his dripping hand.
And ere the lifeboats reached us and gathered
our scattered few,
We saw that night what so long we’d known,
that a Glo’ster fishing crew,
Rude and rough and grimed and gruff, had
calmly shown again
That on sea or sod they can meet their God in
the way that beseemeth men!
Then over her sullen bulwarks, as she stamped
and chafed and rolled,
From the night and wreck to her dazzling deck
climbed we—and our tale was told.
And the dainty folk from her staterooms lis-
tened and gazed and said,
As they tiptoed across our dripping trail,
“How awful!”—then went to bed.
And our half-score left, of all bereft—com-
rades and gear and smack—
Sat hoping our wreck would tell no tales till
our scattered few came back.
And haughtily unrepentant, the liner, insolent
still,
Through foam and spume and fog and gloom
drove on to wreak her will.
Were only her zeal less eager, her lust for her
prey less keen,
She must have sensed that horrid chill that
shuddered from One Unseen.
But onward she plunged unheeding that there
in the vast, black sea,
As grim as Fate there lay in wait One mightier
than she.
A ghost in white before her—the fog its som-
bre pall—
And she crushed herself like dead-ripe fruit
against the iceberg’s wall.
Then up from her perfumed cabins came pour-
ing the rich and proud,
And I—poor Glo’ster fisher—I blushed for
that maddened crowd.
There were men in silken night-gear who
fought frail women back,
There were pampered fools who, fierce as
ghouls, left murder in their track;
There were shrieking men whose jeweled
hands dragged children from a boat
And rode away in the babies’ stead when the
life-craft went afloat.
’Tis not for boast that I tell the rest: we’re
not of the boasting kind—
We folks that sail from Glo’ster town; but you
know you’ll sometimes find
A man who sneers at a tattered coat or a sun-
burned fist or face,
And believes that only blood or purse can
honor the human race.
Forlorn and few, our battered crew had stared
at Death that night;
Perhaps we’d known him so long and well his
mien did not affright.
Perhaps we hide here in our hearts, below the
rags and tan,
The honest stuff, unplaned and rough, that
really makes the man.
For we bared our arms and we stormed the
press—of safety took no care;
We dragged those wretches from the boats—
then placed the women there.
No time had we for the courtly “Please!” If
a poltroon answered “No,”
We gave him the thing that a man reserves for
the coward’s case—a blow.
It isn’t a boast, I say again; but we stayed till
all had passed,
Then the ragged coats of those Glo’ster men
went over her lee rail last.
And three of the few of our scattered crew,
who had twice dared Fate that night,
Went down in the rush of the whirlpool’s tow
when the liner swooped from sight.
We ask no praise, we seek no heights above
our chosen place,
But the men of the Banks know how to die
when Davy trumps their ace.
And if need arise for a sacrifice we’ve shown,
and we’ll show again,
That on sea or sod we can meet our God in
the way that beseemeth men.