Francis Joseph Sherman: Verses about Sea

“It well may be just as you say,
Will Carver, that your tales are true;
Yet think what I must put away,
Will Carver, if I sail with you.”

“If you should sail with me (the wind


Is west, the tide’s at full, my men!)
The things that you have left behind
Will be as nothing to you then.”

“Inland, it’s June! And the birds sing
Among the wooded hills, I know;


Between green fields, unhastening,
The Nashwaak’s shadowed waters flow.

“What know you of such things as these
Who have the gray sea at your door,—
Whose path is as the strong winds please


Beyond this narrow strip of shore?”

“Your fields and woods! Now, answer me:
Up what green path have your feet run
So wide as mine, when the deep sea
Lies all-uncovered to the sun?



“And down the hollows of what hills
Have you gone—half so glad of heart
As you shall be when our sail fills
And the great waves ride far apart?”

“O! half your life is good to live,


Will Carver; yet, if I should go,
What are the things that you can give
Lest I regret the things I know!

“Lest I desire the old life’s way?
The noises of the crowded town?


The busy streets, where, night and day,
The traffickers go up and down?”

“What can I give for these? Alas,
That all unchanged your path must be!
Strange lights shall open as we pass


And alien wakes traverse the sea;

“Your ears shall hear (across your sleep)
New hails, remote, disquieted,
For not a hand-breadth of the deep
But has to soothe some restless dead.



“These things shall be. And other things,
I think, not quite so sad as these!
—Know you the song the rigging sings
When up the opal-tinted seas

“The slow south-wind comes amorously?


The sudden gleam of some far sail
Going the same glad way as we,
Hastily, lest the good wind fail?

“The dreams that come (so strange, so fair!)
When all your world lies well within


The moving magic circle where
The sea ends and the skies begin?” . . .

. . . “What port is that, so far astern,
Will Carver? And how many miles
Shall we have run ere the tide turn?


—And is it far to the farthest isles?”

Let us rise up and live! Behold, each thing
Is ready for the moulding of our hand.
Long have they all awaited our command;
None other will they ever own for king.
Until we come no bird dare try to sing,

5
Nor any sea its power may understand;
No buds are on the trees; in every land
Year asketh year some tidings of some Spring.
Yea, it is time,—high time we were awake!
Simple indeed shall life be unto us.

10
What part is ours?—To take what all things give;
To feel the whole world growing for our sake;
To have sure knowledge of the marvelous;
To laugh and love.—L et us rise up and live!



II


Let us rule well and long. We will build here

15
Our city in the pathway of the sun.
On this side shall this mighty river run;
Along its course well-laden ships shall steer.
Beyond, great mountains shall their crests uprear,
That from their sides our jewels may be won.

20
Let all you toil! Behold, it is well done;
Under our sway all far things fall and near!
All time is ours! Let us rule long and well!
So we have reigned for many a long, long day.
No change can come. . . .What hath that slave to tell,

25
Who dares to stop us on our royal way?
“O King, last night within thy garden fell,
From thine own tree, a rose whose leaves were gray.” [page 32]



III


Let us lie down and sleep! All things are still,
And everywhere doth rest alone seem sweet.

30
No more is heard the sound of hurrying feet
Athrough the land their echoes once did fill.
Even the wind knows not its ancient will,
For each ship floats with undisturbèd sheet:
Naught stirs except the Sun, who hastes to greet

35
His handmaiden, the utmost western hill.
Ah, there the glory is! O west of gold!
Once seemed our life to us as glad and fair;
We knew nor pain nor sorrow anywhere!
O crimson clouds! O mountains autumn-stoled!

40
Across even you long shadows soon must sweep.
We too have lived. Let us lie down and sleep!



IV


Nay, let us kneel and pray! The fault was ours,
O Lord! No other ones have sinned as we.
The Spring was with us and we praised not Thee;

45
We gave no thanks for Summer’s strangest flowers.
We built us many ships, and mighty towers,
And held awhile the whole broad world in fee:
Yea, and it sometime writhed at our decree!
The stars, the winds,—all they were subject-powers.

50
All things we had for slave. We knew no God;
We saw no place on earth where His feet trod—
This earth, where now the Winter hath full sway,
Well shrouded under cold white snows and deep.
We rose and lived; we ruled; yet, ere we sleep,

55
O Unknown God,—Let us kneel down and pray

“A little while and I shall see
His ships returned to fight for me.

He may not dream what bitter woes
I have to bear; but still he knows
April and I wait patiently.

“I pray you, sirs, that you will keep
Good watch tonight, lest they should creep


Close to the landward wall again;
You might not hear them in this rain.
And I, because I cannot sleep,

“Shall guard this other side, till morn
Show me his sails all gray and torn,


But swift to bring to Charnisay
Tidings that it is Easter Day
On earth, and Jesus Christ is born!)

“Shall he not come? Can he withstand
The beckoning of April’s hand,


The voices of the little streams
That break tonight across his dreams
Of me, alone in a north land?

“Though yesterday in Boston town
Fair women wandered up and down


Warm pathways under green-leaved trees,
Was he not sick with memories
Of April’s hair and starry gown?

“Does he not hear spring’s trumpet blow
Beyond the limits of the snow?


Hark how its silver echo fills
The hollow places of the hills,
Proclaiming winter’s overthrow!

“How glad he was in the old days
To tread those newly opened ways!


Together we would go—as we
Shall go tomorrow, joyously—
And find ten thousand things to praise,

“Things now so sad to think upon.
And yet he must return ere dawn;


Because he hears at the sea’s rim,
Calling across the night to him,
The sundering icebergs of St. John.”

…Now, when dawn broke at last, sullen and gray,
And on the sea there gleamed no distant sail,


She quietly said, “It is not Easter Day,
And in my vision I have dreamed strange dreams.”
Still drave the rain in from the east, and still
The ice churned by the bases of the cliffs,
And little noises woke among the firs.


“And yet,” she said, “beyond the outer seas,
Far off, in France, among the white, white lilies,
Today they think that Eastertide has come;
And maidens deck their bodies amorously,
And go to sing glad hymns to Christ arisen,


Within the little chapel on the hill.
Now shall I fancy it is Easter here,
And think the wasting snow great banks of lilies
And this gray cliff my chapel; and I shall go
And gather seaweed, twining it in my hair,


And know God will regard me graciously
Who fashion such sweet carols in his praise.
I must do this alone, because La Tour
Is dallying still in Boston town, where girls
Make beautiful their hair with southern blooms,—


Wood violets and odorous mayflower blossoms,
Such as come late into our northern fields.
Was it last Easter—was it years ago—
That he and I went joyously together—
(Having prayed Christ to bless us with his grace)—


Between the wasting trunks of the tall pines [page 136]
Wherein one crow called to the hidden rain?
(For here, although it rain at Easter even,
The dawn breaks golden; and a million hours
Seem flown since yesterday.) O golden France,


Long lost and nigh forgotten! do they know
Who walk today between your palaces
The gladness that we know when April comes
Into the solitude of this our north,
And the snows vanish as her flying feet


Are heard upon the hills? Their organs, now,
Do they sound unto heaven a prouder strain
Than these great pines? Hark how the wind booms through
Their topmost branches, come from the deep sea!
And how old Fundy sends its roaring tides


High up against the rocks! Yea, even in France,
I think God sees not more to make him glad
Today,—only the sunshine and the lilies”—
She paused, hearing the chapel matin bell
Clang wearily; and, like to one that finds


No welcome in some long-imagined land
Now near at last, back from the hopeless sea,
With agèd face, she turned to help them pray
Whose hearts had lost their heritage of hope….

It was quite dark within the room
Wherein the Lady Alice sat;
One had not seen, who looked thereat,
The gathered dust upon her loom,
There was such gloom.



And though the hangings on the wall
Were wrought so well and cunningly
That many had come far to see
Their glory once (for they were all
Of cardinal,


And gold, and silk, and curious glass)
The ladies with the long red hair
Thereon, the strong men fighting there,
The little river edged with grass,—
Were now, alas,



As if they had been always gray.
Likewise the lily, whose perfume
Had once been over all the room,
In which dark corner now it lay,―
What man might say?



She did not see these things, or know
That they had changed since she had seen.
She like it best to sit between
Two little firs (they used to grow,
Once, long ago!)



That stood each in an earthen pot
Upon the window’s either side.
They had been green before they died,
But like the rest fell out their lot,—
To be forgot.



Yet what cared she for such as these,
Whose window was toward the sun
At sun-rising? There was not one
Of them so strong and sure to please,
Or bring her ease,



As what she saw when she looked through
Her window just before the dawn.
These were the sights she gazed upon:
Sir John, whose silken pennon flew,
Yellow and blue,



And proud to be upon his lance;
The horse he rode being gray and white;
A few men, unafraid to fight,
Followed (there were some men in France
Were brave, perchance!)



And they were armed with swords and spears;
Their horses, too, were mostly gray.
—They seemed not sad to go away,
For they were men had lost their fears
With their child-years.



They had such hope, there was but one
Looked back: Sir John had strength to look.
His men saw not that his lance shook
A little, for though night was done,
There was no sun.



And so they rode into the dawn
That waited just behind the hill;
(In France there were some men to kill!)
These were the things she looked upon
Till they were gone.


The room was dark, and full of fear;
And so the Lady Alice stayed
Beside the window. Here she prayed
Each morning, and when night drew near,
Year after year.


Beside her lay some unused things:
A trumpet that had long been mute;
A vellum book; a little lute
That once had ten unrusted strings;
And four gold rings;


A piece of faded cloth-of-gold;
And three black pennies that were white
As silver once:—the great delight
She had of all these things of old
Was not quite cold.



Only the things that she could see
Out of the window gladdened her;
After the morning, those things were:
A ship that rode triumphantly
(This sight would be



Plainest a little ere the noon)
On wide blue waters, with the wind
Strong from the west that lay behind;
Its sail curved like a slender moon,
Born into June.



An empty ship beside the shore
Of some unconquered foreign land;
Some brave men fighting on the sand
As they had never fought before
In any war;



A few men fleeing to the hills
(This came a little after noon),
God, but the fight was ended soon!
They were not hard to wound and kill!
A trumpet shrill



Echoes, and many knights pursue!
And on the hillside dead men lie,
Who learned before they came to die
The yellow flags the victors flew
Were crossed with blue!


No wonder that this window-place
Could make the Lady Alice glad,
When sights like these were what she had!
Yet there was one that made her face
For a little space



Grow like a face that God has known.
I think she was the happiest
When the sun dropped into the west;
This was the thing she then was shown,
And this alone:



A laden ship that followed fast
The way the setting sun had led;
In the east wind her great sail spread;
A brave knight standing near the mast;
The shore at last!



Of all things, this the best did seem.
And now the gathering darkness fell;
The morn would bring him, she knew well;
She slept; and in her sleep, I deem,
She had one dream



Against the window-side she slept.
This window-place was very strange;
Since it was made it had known change.
Beneath it once no women wept,
And no vines crept



And twisted in the broken glass.
Some time ago, the little tree
That she had planted tenderly
Was not much higher than tall grass;
But now, alas,



Its branches were the greatest where
Her window looked toward the sun.
One branch, indeed, its way had won
Into her room,—it did not bear
Green leaves in there.

135

Above the window, and inside,
Great spider-webs were spun across.
Where stone was, there was wet green moss
Wherein small creeping things did hide
Until they died.

140

The leaves that looked toward the room
Were hardly anything but veins;
They had been wasted by the rains,
Like some dead naked girl in the gloom
Of some old tomb.



But those outside were broad and green,
And lived between the sun and shade.
A perfect bower they had made,—
Beneath them there should sit some queen,
Born to be seen!


It was quite dark within the place
Wherein the Lady Alice slept.
I heard the girls below who wept,
But God did not (of His good grace)
Show me her face