A shadow down the sickened wave
Long since her slayer fled:
But hear their chattering quick-fires rave
Astern, abeam, ahead!
Panic that shells the drifting spar—
Loud waste with none to check—
Mad fear that rakes a scornful star
Or sweeps a consort’s deck!
Now, while their silly smoke hangs thick,
Now ere their wits they find,
Lay in and lance them to the quick—
Our gallied whales are blind!
Good luck to those that see the end,
Good-bye to those that drown—
For each his chance as chance shall send—
And God for all! Shut down!
The strength of twice three thousand horse
That serve the one command;
The hand that heaves the headlong force,
The hate that hacks the hand:
The doom-bolt in the darkness freed,
The mine that splits the main;
The white-hot wake, the ’wildering speed—
The Choosers of the Slain!
WHITE HORSES
Where run your colts at pasture?
Where hide your mares to breed?
’Mid bergs about the Ice-cap
Or wove Sargasso weed;
By chartless reef and channel,
Or crafty coastwise bars,
But most the ocean-meadows
All purple to the stars!
Who holds the rein upon you?
The latest gale let free.
What meat is in your mangers?
The glut of all the sea.
’Twixt tide and tide’s returning
Great store of newly dead,—
The bones of those that faced us,
And the hearts of those that fled.
Afar, off-shore and single,
Some stallion, rearing swift,
Neighs hungry for new fodder,
And calls us to the drift.
Then down the cloven ridges—
A million hooves unshod—
Break forth the mad White Horses
To seek their meat from God!
Girth-deep in hissing water
Our furious vanguard strains—
Through mist of mighty tramplings
Roll up the fore-blown manes—
A hundred leagues to leeward,
Ere yet the deep is stirred,
The groaning rollers carry
The coming of the herd!
Whose hand may grip your nostrils—
Your forelock who may hold?
E’en they that use the broads with us—
The riders bred and bold,
That spy upon our matings,
That rope us where we run—
They know the strong White Horses
From father unto son.