IV

Over the wooded shore-line,

Where the hidden rivers stray

Down to the sea like timid girls,

I saw in the first faint gray

A burst of cloudy topsails

Go blowing swiftly by,

With the stars aswirl behind them

Like bright dust down the sky.

Gone were the days of waiting,

And the long, blind search was gone;

With a cheer we swung to meet them

On the forefoot of the dawn.

Out of the screening woodland

Into the open sound

The frigate crashed, then staggered

Careening, fast aground.

White water tugged behind us,

We felt the Henry reel

And spin as the hard impartial sand

Closed on her vibrant keel.

All through the high white morning,

While the lagging tide crawled out,

Fate held us bound and waiting,

While, turn and turn about,

We manned the fuming cannon

And bartered hell for hell,

While the scuppers sang with coursing life

Where the dead and dying fell.

Till, like the break of fever

When life thrills up through pain,

We felt the current stirring

Under the keel again.

Then it was hand to cutlass,

And pistols in the sash.

“All hands stand by for boarding,—

Now, close abeam and lash!”

But the ensign that had mocked us

With its symbol of the dead

Fluttered and dropped to the bloody deck,

And a white square spoke instead.

Home from the kill we thundered

On the tail of the equinox,

To the thrum of straining canvas,

And the whine and groan of blocks.

Leaping clear of the shallows,

Chancing the creaming bars,

We heard the first faint cheering

As the late sun limned our spars.

Safe in the lee of the city

We moored in the afterglow,

The Sea Nymph and the Henry

With the buccaneers in tow.

Glad we had been in the going,

But God! it was good to come

Out of the sky-wide loneliness

To the walls and lights of home.