The Haglets

By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat,

The lichened urns in wilds are lost

About a carved memorial stone

That shows, decayed and coral-mossed,

A form recumbent, swords at feet,

Trophies at head, and kelp for a winding-sheet.

I invoke thy ghost, neglected fane,

Washed by the waters’ long lament;

I adjure the recumbent effigy

To tell the cenotaph’s intent—

Reveal why fagotted swords are at feet,

Why trophies appear and weeds are the winding-sheet.

–––––––

By open ports the Admiral sits,

And shares repose with guns that tell

Of power that smote the arm’d Plate Fleet

Whose sinking flag-ship’s colors fell;

But over the Admiral floats in light

His squadron’s flag, the red-cross Flag of the White.

   The eddying waters whirl astern,

The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray;

With bellying sails and buckling spars

The black hull leaves a Milky Way;

Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll,

She revelling speeds exulting with pennon at pole,

   But ah, for standards captive trailed

For all their scutcheoned castles’ pride—

Castilian towers that dominate Spain,

Naples, and either Ind beside;

Those haughty towers, armorial ones,

Rue the salute from the Admiral’s dens of guns.

Ensigns and arms in trophy brave,

Braver for many a rent and scar,

The captor’s naval hall bedeck,

Spoil that insures an earldom’s star—

Toledoes great, grand draperies, too,

Spain’s steel and silk, and splendors from Peru.

   But crippled part in splintering fight,

The vanquished flying the victor’s flags,

With prize-crews, under convoy-guns,

Heavy the fleet from Opher drags—

The Admiral crowding sail ahead,

Foremost with news who foremost in conflict sped.

   But out from cloistral gallery dim,

In early night his glance is thrown;

He marks the vague reserve of heaven,

He feels the touch of ocean lone;

Then turns, in frame part undermined,

Nor notes the shadowing wings that fan behind.

There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly,

And follow, follow fast in wake

Where slides the cabin-lustre shy,

And sharks from man a glamour take,

Seething along the line of light

In lane that endless rules the war-ship’s flight.

    The sea-fowl here, whose hearts none know,

They followed late the flag-ship quelled,

(As now the victor one) and long

Above her gurgling grave, shrill held

With screams their wheeling rites—then sped

Direct in silence where the victor led.

    Now winds less fleet, but fairer, blow,

A ripple laps the coppered side,

While phosphor sparks make ocean gleam,

Like camps lit up in triumph wide;

With lights and tinkling cymbals meet

Acclaiming seas the advancing conqueror greet.

But who a flattering tide may trust,

Or favoring breeze, or aught in end?—

Careening under startling blasts

The sheeted towers of sails impend;

While, gathering bale, behind is bred

A livid storm-bow, like a rainbow dead.

    At trumpet-call the topmen spring;

And, urged by after-call in stress,

Yet other tribes of tars ascend

The rigging’s howling wilderness;

But ere yard-ends alert they win,

Hell rules in heaven with hurricane-fire and din.

    The spars, athwart at spiry height,

Like quaking Lima’s crosses rock;

Like bees the clustering sailors cling

Against the shrouds, or take the shock

Flat on the swept yard-arms aslant,

Dipped like the wheeling condor’s pinions gaunt.

A lull! and tongues of languid flame

Lick every boom, and lambent show

Electric ’gainst each face aloft;

The herds of clouds with bellowings go:

The black ship rears—beset—harassed,

Then plunges far with luminous antlers vast.

    In trim betimes they turn from land,

Some shivered sails and spars they stow;

One watch, dismissed, they troll the can,

While loud the billow thumps the bow—

Vies with the fist that smites the board,

Obstreperous at each reveller’s jovial word.

    Of royal oak by storms confirmed,

The tested hull her lineage shows:

Vainly the plungings whelm her prow—

She rallies, rears, she sturdier grows:

Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home,

With batteries housed she rams the watery dome.

Dim seen adrift through driving scud,

The wan moon shows in plight forlorn;

Then, pinched in visage, fades and fades

Like to the faces drowned at morn,

When deeps engulfed the flag-ship’s crew,

And, shrilling round, the inscrutable haglets flew.

    And still they fly, nor now they cry,

But constant fan a second wake,

Unflagging pinions ply and ply,

Abreast their course intent they take;

Their silence marks a stable mood,

They patient keep their eager neighborhood.

    Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea,

Heaved in a combing pyramid full,

Spent at its climax, in collapse

Down headlong thundering stuns the hull:

The trophy drops; but, reared again,

Shows Mars’ high-altar and contemns the main.

Rebuilt it stands, the brag of arms,

Transferred in site—no thought of where

The sensitive needle keeps its place,

And starts, disturbed, a quiverer there;

The helmsman rubs the clouded glass—

Peers in, but lets the trembling portent pass.

    Let pass as well his shipmates do

(Whose dream of power no tremors jar)

Fears for the fleet convoyed astern:

"Our flag they fly, they share our star;

Spain’s galleons great in hull are stout:

Manned by our men—like us they’ll ride it out."

    Tonight’s the night that ends the week—

Ends day and week and month and year:

A fourfold imminent flickering time,

For now the midnight draws anear:

Eight bells! and passing-bells they be—

The Old year fades, the Old Year dies at sea.

He launched them well. But shall the New

Redeem the pledge the Old Year made,

Or prove a self-asserting heir?

But healthy hearts few qualms invade:

By shot-chests grouped in bays ’tween guns

The gossips chat, the grizzled, sea-beat ones.

    And boyish dreams some graybeards blab:

"To sea, my lads, we go no more

Who share the Acapulco prize;

We’ll all night in, and bang the door;

Our ingots red shall yield us bliss:

Lads, golden years begin to-night with this!"

    Released from deck, yet waiting call,

Glazed caps and coats baptized in storm,

A watch of Laced Sleeves round the board

Draw near in heart to keep them warm:

"Sweethearts and wives!" clink, clink, they meet,

And, quaffing, dip in wine their beards of sleet.

"Ay, let the star-light stay withdrawn,

So here her hearth-light memory fling,

So in this wine-light cheer be born,

And honor’s fellowship weld our ring—

Honor! our Admiral’s aim foretold:

A tomb or a trophy, and lo, ’t is a trophy and gold!"

   But he, a unit, sole in rank,

Apart needs keep his lonely state,

The sentry at his guarded door

Mute as by vault the sculptured Fate;

Belted he sits in drowsy light,

And, hatted, nods—the Admiral of the White.

    He dozes, aged with watches passed—

Years, years of pacing to and fro;

He dozes, nor attends the stir

In bullioned standards rustling low,

Nor minds the blades whose secret thrill

Perverts overhead the magnet’s Polar will:—

Less heeds the shadowing three that play

And follow, follow fast in wake,

Untiring wing and lidless eye—

Abreast their course intent they take;

Or sigh or sing, they hold for good

The unvarying flight and fixed inveterate mood.

    In dream at last his dozings merge,

In dream he reaps his victory’s fruit;

The Flags-o’-the-Blue, the Flags-o’-the-Red,

Dipped flags of his country’s fleets salute

His Flag-o’-the-White in harbor proud—

But why should it blench? Why turn to a painted shroud?

    The hungry seas they hound the hull,

The sharks they dog the haglets’ flight;

With one consent the winds, the waves

In hunt with fins and wings unite,

While drear the harps in cordage sound

Remindful wails for old Armadas drowned.

Ha—yonder! are they Northern Lights?

Or signals flashed to warn or ward?

Yea, signals lanced in breakers high;

But doom on warning follows hard:

While yet they veer in hope to shun,

They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are one.

    But beating hearts a drum-beat calls

And prompt the men to quarters go;

Discipline, curbing nature, rules—

Heroic makes who duty know:

They execute the trump’s command,

Or in peremptory places wait and stand.

    Yet cast about in blind amaze—

As through their watery shroud they peer:

"We tacked from land: then how betrayed?

Have currents swerved us—snared us here?"

None heed the blades that clash in place

Under lamps dashed down that lit the magnet’s case.

Ah, what may live, who mighty swim,

Or boat-crew reach that shore forbid,

Or cable span? Must victors drown—

Perish, even as the vanquished did?

Man keeps from man the stifled moan;

They shouldering stand, yet each in heart how lone.

    Some heaven invoke; but rings of reefs

Prayer and despair alike deride

In dance of breakers forked or peaked,

Pale maniacs of the maddened tide;

While, strenuous yet some end to earn,

The haglets spin, though now no more astern.

    Like shuttles hurrying in the looms

Aloft through rigging frayed they ply—

Cross and recross—weave and inweave,

Then lock the web with clinching cry

Over the seas on seas that clasp

The weltering wreck where gurgling ends the gasp.

Ah, for the Plate-Fleet trophy now,

The victor’s voucher, flags and arms;

Never they’ll hang in Abbey old

And take Time’s dust with holier palms;

Nor less content, in liquid night,

Their captor sleeps—the Admiral of the White.

            Imbedded deep with shells

            And drifted treasure deep,

            Forever he sinks deeper in

            Unfathomable sleep—

            His cannon round him thrown,

            His sailors at his feet,

            The wizard sea enchanting them

            Where never haglets beat.

            On nights when meteors play

            And light the breakers dance,

            The Oreads from the caves

            With silvery elves advance;

            And up from ocean stream,

            And down from heaven far,

            The rays that blend in dream

            The abysm and the star.