The low-hung, skimming scuppers—
The flaunting skull and bones—
The buccaneer on his poop-deck
Roaring in thunder tones
To a swarthy, ill-begotten crew—
As slow the daylight dies,
And he lifts with a smile the chartless isle
Where the buried treasure lies.
The lilt of living music
Caressing heart and brain:
Harp, guitar and mandolin
In languorous, limpid strain.
The fluttering fan—the furtive glance—
The black mantilla’s reign—
And the Captains bold who drop their gold
To bask in the eyes of Spain.
The towering galleons plunging
Thrice-tiered above the foam:
The ringing round-shot roaring,
And the crash of the hit gone home:
The yard-arms staggering under,
Where, scorning the iron rain
And showing its fangs to a parting world,
Goes down the Lion of Spain.
. . . . . . . . . .
When the clattering city cloys you
With the stress of its strident call—
When practical, calculating Things
Are domineering all—
When your clamped mind in its weariness
To Romance turns again,
Seek ye the Andalusian crags—
The flare of the gold and crimson flags—
And the scented breath where the night wind drags
Through the Isles of the Spanish Main.
C. Q. D.
THE PRESENT-DAY “S. O. S.”
Cities and kings and nations
Hush at my outer breath,
As sightless I glide o’er the wind-lashed tide
In my race with the deep-sea death.
War and Trade and the Laws ye made
Halt at the Letters Three,
Bound on my errand of mercy—I—
The ultimate C.Q.D.
No wave may intercept me,
Though it tower a hundred feet;
No storm shall ever stay me,
Though sky and waters meet.
Piercing the howling heavens—
Skimming the churning sea—
Through blast and gale I bring the tale—
I—the pitying C.Q.D.
And when through the white-toothed combers
The helping hull looms high,
And when the small-boats leap aside
Through the glare of the red-shot sky,
Out, out across the ocean’s dawn
The final flashes flee—
“All saved!” And the circling shores ring back—
“Thank God—and the C.Q.D!”
THE LIGHTS
The fair-weather lights are gleaming
Across a tranquil main,
By beam and beam so bright they seem
A laughing, endless chain.