Verses and Rhymes By the Way

by Norah

Dead hands pulled the ropes and trimmed the sails,
But no cheery cries the night wind hails.
They worked the ship like men who slept
But steadily, oh so steadily!
They took in sail, the watch they kept,
And groped about blindly, silently.
Fore and aft on the waves swarmed fiendish things,
Vile creatures that seemed to be heads with wings.
Like a shoal of porpoises millions strong,
Alive with motion that could not rest,
Twisting out ropes from the breaker's crest,
From the fleecy foam of the yeasty spray,
With hands that appeared and vanished away;
Chattering, they towed the ship along;
And we, the living, stood looking on,
Until that horrible night was gone.

When the grey of dawn came in the sky,
With a scream and a cheer the fiends vanished;
Over the side filing silently
Went our messmates, the corpses swollen and dead,
Gliding over the waves with the vanishing night
Till the low clouds covered them up from our sight.

We, like men who have got respite from pain,
Put about the ship toward home again,
The sails swelled out with a favouring wind;
The coast of horrors we left behind.
And cheerily sailed in the blessed light;
But the ghosts of the crew came back at night.
Whatever distance we gained by day.
They steered us back in the moonlight grey.

How it came to pass I can never tell,
But I thought of God in the jaws of hell—
Through my despair came the thought that He
Was a helper in extremity
For the first time in my wandering years,
My burning eyes felt the bliss of tears
Like refreshing dew on soul and sense
Fell the softening grace of penitence
The Grace Divine that maketh whole,
Stole into the darkness of my soul

Sad thoughts were rising into prayer,
By the wheel on the night air chill and raw
The ghost of my messmate stood by me,
And looked in my face with eyes that saw
The blue lips said "Be awake, and aware,
The enchanted ship will touch the shore,
Fly then from us, and you will be free,
Your penance of suffering will be o'er
But the rest, for the deed that they have done
Shall sail on without rest beneath the sun."

I made my escape when we reached the shore,
And I saw the ship and the crew no more
Alone I laid myself down to die,
No human aid, as I thought, was nigh
I longed for death, I was not afraid
I was found by roving hunter bands,
Brought back to life by merciful hands,
The hands of a dark skinned Indian maid.
She nursed me with skill and tenderness,
And recovered me from loathsomeness
But the day has come and the hours draw nigh,
When I, Louis Marin, must surely die
I write down my crime, that soon or late
The world may know Captain Hudson's fate

I write of our crime and our sufferings,
Of vengeance that follows, remorse that stings
Messmates remember though crime is done,
In the lonest spot beneath the sun,
Where footstep of man has never trod,
It's under the eye of an avenging God.
He comes near, a Swift Witness, with intent
That they who sow crime shall reap punishment.

FORSAKEN.

Beside the open window she is lying,
Through which comes softly in the balmy air,
And fans her wasted cheek; but slowly dying,
She seeth not that autumn's finger fair
Tinges the golden landscape everywhere.

She seeth not the glory of the maples,
That in their crimson robes surround her home;
Nor the rich red of the ripe clustering apples
In the old orchard, where can never come
Her flying feet to stoop and gather some.