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Ranolf and Amohia
Canto the Fourth
Canto the Fourth.
I.
and now, behold, this Ranolf once again
Tossing, a Student-Sailor, on the main.
Here are some fragments written home from sea,
Two in his earlier Sailor life, and three
His later. Of his character they show
Some traits, perchance. Then pardon us, although
Beguiled, dear Reader, at this stage too long,
(Alas, for sins of inartistic Song!)
O prithee pardon, if with little skill
We fling these scraps together—skip who will!
1
"A noble sport—and my delight
That reefing topsails! just to make all right,
Ere the wind freshens to a gale at night.
See! clambering nimbly up the shrouds.
Go, thick as bees, the sailor-crowds;
The smartest for the post of honour vie
That weather yardarm pointing to the sky:
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They gather at the topmast-head
And dark against the darkling cloud
Sidling along the foot-ropes spread:
Dim figures o'er the yardarm bowed,
How with the furious Sail, a glorious sight,
Up in the darkness of the Sky they fight!
While by the fierce encounter troubled
The heavy pitching of the Ship is doubled;
The big Sail's swelling, surging volumes, full
Of wind, the strong reef-tackle half restrains;
And like some lasso-tangled bull
Checked in its raid career of savage might
O'er far La Plata's plains,
It raves and tugs and plunges to get free
And flaps and bellows in its agony!
But slowly yielding to its scarce-seen foes
Faint and more faint its frenzied struggling grows;
Till, by its frantic rage at length
Exhausted, like that desert-ranger's strength,
Silent and still, it seems to shrink and close;
Then, tight comprest, the reef-points firmly tied,
Down to the deck again the sailors glide;
And easier now, with calm concentred force,
The Ship bounds forward on her lightened course."
2.
"Once, 'twas my watch below, (worse luck!)
A sudden squall the vessel struck:
With half my clothes about me thrown
I rushed on deck—what havoc there!
The topsails from the bolt-ropes blown,
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Topgallant masts and royals gone,
And huddled sails and shattered spars
And tangled tackle every where;
While all amazed, our gallant tars
Stood at the sudden wreck aghast,
Nor seemed to heed the swift commands
The Captain shouted through the blast,
The heaving staysail swagged and swung
As from the strained jibboom it hung:
Of course with some sharp words addrest
To two or three, our smartest hands.
Forward I jumped to do my best
They followed quick;—the lightest,
I The bowsprit's end could safest try;
We grasped the frail spaT like grim death,
And shut our eyes and held our breath,
Clinging with tightened arms and knees
When o'er us dashed successive seas
And blinded, ducked, and drenched us, till
Seizing the chance of every lull
To look and lash and tug and pull,
We furled the sail and got it still;
Though no one knew as there we clung
How badly was the bowsprit sprung.
But when I 'lighted on the deck
Shaking the water off the good
White-headed Master, who had stood,
He told me since, in breathless mood
(His heart was in his mouth, he said
While looking on, for very dread)
Threw his old arms about my neck,
God bless you!' cried he,' my brave Son!
Twas nobly, beautifully done!
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The safety of my Ship and Crew
This blessed day—I swear 'tis true,
Is owing, under God, to you! '—
Mother! ten times the risk I'd run
To have such praise declared my due,
By such a gallant Seaman too!"
3
"How grandly—when throughout the silent day,
Some ample Day, serene, divine,
Beneath the glowing Line
Our helpless Ship had hung as in a trance
In light-blue glassiness of calm that lay
A wide expanse
Encircled by soft depths of ether clear,
Whose melting azure seemed to swim
Surcharged and saturate with balmiest brilliancy—
How grandly solemn was the Day's decline!
Down as if wholly dropped from out the Sky
The fallen Sun's great disc would lolling lie
Upon the narrowed Ocean's very rim,
Awfully near!
A hush of expectation almost grim
Wrapt all the pure, blank, empty hemisphere;
While straight across the gleaming crimson floor,
From the unmoving Ship's black burnished side,
There ran a golden pathway right into the core
Of all that throbbing splendour violet-dyed;
Whither it seemed an easy task to follow
The liquid ripples tremblingly o'erflowing
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Into the intense and blinding hollow
Of palpitating purple, showing
The way as through an open door
Into some world of burning bliss, undreamt of here to fore.—
Whose heart would not have swelled, the while
Deep adoration and delight came o'er him
At that stupendous mystery, close before him!
Not less, but more stupendous that he knew
Perchance, whate'er the subtle surface-play
Of Science had to teach of level ray
Reflected or refracted; and could say,
Nay, almost count the millions to a mile,
How far away
That pure quintessence of dark fire, deep-lying
In fathomless Flame-Oceans round him flying,
His inconceivable circumference withdrew:
Knew all about the fringe of flames that frisk
In ruddy dance about his moon-masked face,
Set on like petals round a sunflower's disc—
Each glorious petal shooting into space
Ten times as far as Earth's vast globe is thick:
Aye! or could prate about full many a world
Worn out, and, crushed to cinders, flying fleet,
Or in cold black rotundity complete,
Into his burning bosom headlong hurled,
Just by collision to strike out fresh heat,
And feed with flame, renew and trim,
And keep for aye from falling dim
That monstrous and immeasurable wick—
Say rather—everlastingly keep bright
That awful, mystic, God-created Light!"
4
"Naraka—Niflheim—Tartarus—or Tophet!
From what dead heart and poor unpicturing brain,—
Too dull to see or realize
Its own demoniac phantasies—
Of Bonze, Skald, Brahman, talapoin, or prophet—
Goth, Syrian. Greek, or old Hindu,
Of Aryan or Semitic strain—
Came singly or from all upgrew
That rank arch-blasphemy and dream insane
Of torture-gulfs where Infinite Love
All human guess or gauge above
Preserves in fiery suffocation
The myriads of its own creation?
I care not—I; but when came
On deck in darkness yesternight,
That very place appeared to be
Laid bare before my startled sight:
For far and wide in pale effulgence dire,
One boundless ghastly welter of white fire,
The Ocean rolled; a hoary Sea
Of awful incandescence rolled and broke away
In bursts of fire spray—tongues of lambent flame
That writhed and tossed in burning play,
And with a baleful glare
Put out the stars—quenched what mild radiance fell
From the clear skies, as that unhallowed spell
Of blighting Superstition can outblaze
With its fierce coruscations of despair
The genuine rays
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Of light from Heaven that fall like dew,
Divine illuminings serene and true.
And yet such thoughts did ill beseem
This vision—so would any deem,
And other lore and wiser learn,
Who o'er the taffrail marked the excess
And marvel of the loveliness
Of those swift-whirling volumes of soft light
Fast-flashing with gold star-drops sparkling bright
In myriads through the alabaster glow—
Those spangled gyres and wreaths of dazzling snow
That still in wide expanding trail
Went roaring off her stern
So grandly as our Vessel through
The surging phosphorescence flew,
Streaming behind her, as the snowy plumes
Of those rich birds the Aztecs old
Reared at their royal Town of Gold,
Stream when at dusk they slowly sail
Streaking the depth of Amazonian glooms.
Ah! surely no sound heart these glories seeing
Would thence derive the notion of a Being
Creating only to destroy;
Or framing Phlegethons and fire-washed caves
Swarming with frenzied Spirits thicker than these waves
With millions of medusae all alight with joy!"
5
"St. Lawrence! yes, I well remember
Thy Gulf—that morning in September.—
Fast flew our Ship careering lightly
Over the waters breaking brightly;
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Alongside close as if their aim
Were but her vaunted speed to shame,
Sleek, porpoises like lightening went
Cleaving the sunny element;
Now where the black bows smote their way
How would they revel in the roaring spray!
Like victors in the contest now
Dash swift athwart the flying prow;
Or springing forward three abreast
Shoot slippery o'er each foamy crest—
Shoot upwards in an airy arc
As three abreast they passed the bark:—
Pied petrels coursed about the sea
And skimmed the billows dexterously;
Sank with each hollow, rose with every hill,
So close, yet never touched them till
They seized their prey with rapid bill:—
Afar, the cloudy spurts of spray
Told that the grampus sported there
With his ferocious mates at play.
Meanwhile the breeze that freshly blew
From every breaking wavetop drew
A plume of smoke that straightway from the sun
The colours of the rainbow won,
So that you saw wherever turning
A thousand small volcanoes burning.
Emitting vapours of each hue
Of orange, purple, red and blue.
The Sky meanwhile was all alive
With snow-bright clouds that seemed to drive
Swiftly, as though the Heavens in glee
Were racing with the racing Sea:
Each flitting sight and rushing sound
Spread life and hope and joy around;
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Ship, birds and fishes, Sky and ocean
All restless with one glad emotion!—
But what a change! when suddenly we spy
Apart from all that headlong revelry—
Pencilled above the sky-line, like a Spectre drear,
A silent Iceberg solemnly appear,—
Pausing ghost-like our greeting to a wait.—
The crystal Mountain, as we come a near
And feel the airs that from it creep
So chilling o'er the sunny Deep,
Discloses—while it slowly shifts
Now blue, faint-glistening semilucent clifts,
Now melancholy peaks, dead-white and desolate,
But comes it not, this guest unbidden
This wanderer from a home far-hidden,
Dim herald of the mysteries of the Pole
With tidings from that cheerless region fraught—
Comes it not o'er us like the sudden Thought,
The haunting phantom of a World apart,
The blank and silent Apparition
That, ever prompt to gain serene admission,
Lurks on the crowded confines of the heart,
The many-pictured purlieus of the Soul;
Nay, sometimes thrusts its unexpected presence
Upon our brightest tinted hours of pleasaunce?—
That Polar realm is ransacked—known—
And all the World of Matter, still
Lies pervious to determined will:
And shall the World of Spirit never
Its secrets yield to true endeavour?—
Five thousand years have doubtless shown
But little of that Spirit-zone:
For Science is a Child as yet
At hornbook rude and primer set:
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And Man is just emerging from the past
Eternity of Darkness; from the vast
Æons and ages of a measureless Night,
Rubbing his eyes at the unwonted light:
How should he read all things aright
And say what can or cannot be—or utter
Out of his heart the Universe, whose growth
And whole existence yet is but the flutter
Of an ephemeral water-moth?
Take fifty thousand years—a span
In the conceivable career of Man;
Think you, with riper knowledge—skill profounder—
No grand explorers, bolder, sounder,
Will break into that Spirit-zone—reveal
Not iron-bound realms of ruthless ice and snow
Or narrow straits where freezing waters flow,
No shooting lights, or shifting gleams—
But prospects trustier than the dance and play
Protean of those dumb magnetic storms—
Auroras lovelier than our sanguine dreams
Of fondest Inspiration—Forms
Of Being more essentially divine
Than all that in Thought's topmost triumphs shine?
And prove how real the region whence our stray
And shadowy intimations find their way;
With what true signs and tokens rife
Those glimmering dreams and fine forebodings steal
Into the circle of our little day,
Into the glad familiar Sea of Life? "
II.
'Twas some few months before our tale began.
Bowling before the fresh fair breezes ran
Our Ranolf's stately Ship; and now was nearing
A range of rugged hills whose olive-green,
Sleeked over faintly with a sunny sheen,
Upon the starboard bow was seen.
Obliquely towards one shadow she was steering
That, darklier-painted, showed a harbour's mouth,
Because between her and that goal
There stretched a hidden dangerous shoal.
For towering topmasts of the Kauri pine
The Ship had voyaged to the verdant Isles,
The Sea-girt El Dorado of the South
Whose mountains famous since for many a mine
Of marvellous wealth, and reefs of riches, stand
The golden baits from bygone ages planned
To draw the swarms that, sweltering in distress
Cannot be won by nature's simpler wiles,
From climes where Life in very overstrife
To live chokes out redundant rival Life,
To this remote sweet wilderness,
This Life-deserted, Life-desiring land.
In deep blue sky the sun is bright;
The Port some few miles off in sight;
The pleasant Sea's subsiding swell
Of gales for days gone by may tell,
But on the bar no breaker white,
Only as yet a heavier roll
Denotes where lurks that dangerous shoal.
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Alert with lead, and chart, and glass,
The Pilot seeks the well-known pass;
All his familiar marks in view
Together brought, distinct and true.
Erelong the tide's decreasing stream
Chafes at the nearer bank beneath;
The Sea's dark face begins to gleam
(Like tiger roused that shows his teeth)
With many a white foam-streak and seam:
Still should the passage, though more rough,
Have depth of water, width, enough.—
But why, though fair the wind and filled
The sails, though masts and cordage strain.
Why hangs, as by enchantment stilled,
The Ship unmoving?—All in vain
The helm is forced hard down; 'tis plain
The shoal has shifted, and the Ship
Has touched, but o'er its tail, may slip:
She strains—she moves—a moment's bound
She makes ahead—then strikes again
With greater force the harder ground.
She broaches to; her broadside black
Full in the breakers' headlong track;
They leap like tigers on their prey;
She rolls as on they come amain,
Rolls heavily as in writhing pain.
The precious time flies fast away—
The launch is swiftly manned and sent
Over the lee, with wild intent
To anchor grapplings where the tide
Runs smoother, and the Ship might ride
Secure beyond the raging bar,
Could they but haul her off so far.
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The boat against her bows is smashed;
Beneath the savage surges dashed,
Sucked under by the refluent wave,
They vanish—all those seamen brave.
On—on—the breakers press—no check—
No pause—fly hissing o'er the wreck,
And scour along the dangerous deck.
The bulwarks on the seaward side,
Boats—rudder—sternpost irontied
With deep-driven bolts—how vain a stay!
The weight of waters tears away.
Alas! and nothing can be done—
No downward-hoisted flag—no gun
Be got at to give greater stress
To that unheard demand for aid
By the lost Ship's whole aspect made—
Herself, in piteous helplessness,
One huge sad signal of distress.
Still on—and on—the tide's return
Redoubling now their rage and bulk,
In one fierce sweep from stern to stern
The thundering sheets of breakers roar,
High as the tops in spray-clouds soar.
And down in crashing cataracts pour
Over the rolling, tortured hulk,
Death glares in every horrid shape
No help—no mercy—no escape!
For falling spars dash out the brains
Of some—and flying guns adrift,
Or splinters crush them—slaughter swift
Whereof no slightest trace remains,
The furious foam no bloodshed stains:
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Up to the yards and tops they go—
No hope—no chance of iife below!
Then as each ponderous groaning mast
Rocks loosened from its hold at last,
The shrouds and stays, now hanging slack.
Now jerking, bounding, tensely back,
Fling off the helpless victims fast,
Like refuse on the yeast of death
That bellows, raves and boils beneath.
One hapless wretch around his waist
A knotted rope has loosely braced;
When from the stay to which he clings.
The jerking mast the doomed one flings,
It slips—and by the neck he swings:
Death grins and glares in hideous shape—
No hope—no pity—no escape!—
Still on and on—all day the same,
Through all that brilliant summer day
Beneath a sky so blithe and blue
The wild white whirl of waters flew,
In stunning vollies overswept
And beat the black Ship's yielding frame,
And all around roared, tossed, and leapt
Mad-wreathing swathes of snow! affray
More dire than most disastrous rout
Of some conceivable array
Of thronged white elephants—as they
Their phalanx broke in warfare waged
In Siam or the Punjaub—raged
And writhed their great white trunks about,
With screams that shrill as trumpets rung,
And drove destruction everywhere
In maddened terror at the shout
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Of turbaned hosts and torches' flare
Full in their monstrous faces flung;—
Wide horror! but to this, no less,
This furious lashing wilderness,
Innocuous-seeming—transient—tame!
Still on—still on—like fiends of Hell
Whiter than Angels—frantic—fell,
Through all that summer day the same
The merciless murderous breakers came!
And to the mizen-top that swayed
With every breach those breakers made,
Unaided, impotent to aid—
The mates and Master clung all day.
There—while the Sun onlooking gay
Triumphant trod his bright highway;
There, till his cloudless rich decline
Faint in the blinding deafening drench—
Of salt waves roaring down the whine
And creaking groans each grinding wrench
Took from the tortured timbers—there
All day-—all day—in their despair,
The gently brave, the roughly good,
Collected, calm and silent stood.
That hideous doom they firmly face;
To no unmanly moans give way,
No frantic gestures; none disgrace
With wild bravado, vain display,
Their end, but like true men await
The dread extremity of Fate.
Alas! and yet no tongue can tell
What thoughts of life and loved ones swell
With anguish irrepressible,
The hearts these horrors fail to quell.
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The Master urges them to prayer,
'No hope on Earth—be Heaven your care!'
And is it mockery—O but mark
Those masts and crowding figures, dark
Against the flush of love and rest
Suffusing all the gorgeous West
In tearful golden glory drest—
Such soft majestic tenderness,
As of a Power that longs to bless
With ardours of divinest breath
All but one raging spot of Death;—
For all the wide expanse beside
Is blushing, beauteous as a Bride;
And a fierce wedding-day indeed
It seems, of Life and Death-—with none to heed.
And now the foam spurts up between
The starting deck-planks; downward bowed
The mighty masts terrific lean;
Then each with its despairing crowd
Of life, with one tremendous roar
Falls like a tower—and all is o'er.
III.
One of the worn despairing ring who round
Their chief upon the mizen-top had found
A dizzy shelter in the pelting spray,
Had Ranolf borne that dreadful day;
Down with the headlong mast was thrown;
And as his consciousness flashed back again
(A moment in the act of falling gone)
He found himself almost alone
With desperate clutch still clinging to the top
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Beneath its lee that fenced the lashing rain
Of breakers off—else all had been in vain.
'Mid tangled rigging, to the vessel's side
With violent efforts he contrived to glide;
Then, by the chains protected, in the shade
Of the green flying roof the wild waves made,
In that dark hollow's gloom a hideous space,
Steadying his thoughts and strength he clung,
While in his ears the roaring ceaseless race,
The driving avalanche that knew no stop,
With stunning dread reverberation rung.
Beneath him frequent timbers swung
In fragments to and fro; so, quick as thought,
He seized a lucky chance to drop
Into the weltering foam, and caught
A floating piece of plank, and kept
Half hopeless his determined hold,
While it and he like lightning swept
To where the waves less wildly rolled:
A larger fragment next he gained;
Then, with what failing strength remained,
Straight towards that dear-bought harbour strained.
Scarce half a mile the favouring tide
Had forged his drifting plank ahead,
When in the gathering gloom he spied
A big canoe with bulwarks red;
And heard the beat of paddles plied
With strong recurrence—right good will.
Half dead with cramp, fatigue, and chill,
He called; the paddles all were still
He called again; a cheery strain
Gave answer as the rowers sung;
And forth the bounding vessel sprung
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And shot his wayward plank beside
With swirling swiftness as a coot
Or wild duck will alighting shoot—
Ere it can stay its headlong way—
Along the ruffled water. Then
An eager crowd of deep-voiced men,
Dark-visaged, wild—in unknown tongue,
Their hoarse congratulations cried,
As safe on board the backed canoe
With rapid talk and much ado,
That kindly crew the Stranger drew,
With fiercer chaunt they pulled ashore;
There from his clothes the water wrung,
Lit fires, brought food, and on the floor
His bed of fresh-pulled ferns, o'erlajd
With clean elastic mattings, made;
Tried all that care or kindness can
Of genial Earth or generous Man—
Though one half desert, one half savage—
To smoothe and smile away the pangs
Of grief and bodily pain and dread
Of horrible Ocean's wreck and ravage,
Whose shadow like a nightmare hangs
O'er one who lives, of many dead,
Just rescued from her ruthless fangs.
IV.
So ended that death-stricken day.—
But how felt Ranolf as he lay
Rescued and weary—and could scarcely deem
'Twas real, what seemed a wild tremendous dream,
That all his comrades bold had passed away?
Bursting with thanks, O doubt not to the Power
Whose laws had let him live through such an hour:
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And yet—to think of all that life so marred
And mangled, swept away like worthless chaff
While merciless mocking Nature did but laugh!—
"This pure Benevolence hits somewhat hard
It must be owned, "thought he," or rather say
Inexorable laws must have their way.
Were any breach of law allowed, who knows
What infinite disasters would ensue!
Such certainty is safest, we suppose,
For creatures such as Men are. Trite and true!
Yet such a hell of havoc as we saw
To-day makes one half-dubious of such law;
Results so dire, alas! who would not call
Demoniac still—if what we see were all!"
V.
When from the beach with swollen corpses strewn
Like seaweed, 'mid the waste of wreck upthrown
His sea-chest had been brought, and honestly
Returned him—as he much desired
More of this people and their land to see—
To the far neighbouring continent he sent,
(To pay for food and service as required)
For woven stuffs and many an implement
And trinket these barbarians most admired.
Their language then he set himself to learn
With zeal, until the vessel's slow return;
And when in that, and their strange customs versed,
With followers often changed and cheaply paid
From place to place and tribe to tribe he strayed
Amused and loitering, till his way he made
To Rotorua, where we found him first.