Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/The ship of mail
THE SHIP OF MAIL.
(FROM THE GERMAN OF BARON LITTSON.)
The wind roars loud, the sea in wildest surges
Is flash’d with foam, and writhes in savage glee;
The heavens are dark, not e’en one star emerges
From out the storm’s black-frowning canopy.
One ship alone in distant darkness lowers,
Defying wind and wave in very might;
Like some huge phantom, which in midnight hours
O’erwhelms the dreamer with its cold affright.
Its hulk, invincible, bestrides the ocean,
As strongly mournful as the power of death;
On deck is seen no sign of life—no motion,—
Pilot nor helmsman on that ship draws breath.
No white sail floats—no masts aloft are riding—
No sound breaks from that vessel’s silent side;
And yet—as though some demon force were guiding
Its sullen way—it spurns the darkening tide.
The walls of strongest iron planks are framèd,
No hull of wood, but hull from iron wrought;
And never have those giant frames been strainèd
By aught that foeman hath against them brought.
And see! the monster’s hideous throat is brighten’d
From time to time with flash of lurid fire!
Just, as of old, from dragon nostrils lighten’d
The hellish fury of demoniac ire!
Hark! from the deep a sudden voice is sounding,
Like some great captain’s, clearly heard afar,
Like admiral’s tones, from metal tube rebounding:
“Stay! ship! thou moorest here by Trafalgar!”
Then sudden! bursts a radiance o’er the ocean,
As tho’ on far horizon broke the morn,
And o’er the water’s wild and black commotion
White sails, in thronging multitude, are borne.
And lo! the squadron’s now in order going,
Line after line, as though for deadly fight;
And on each mast, from slender spar down flowing,
Waves England’s flag in all its wonted might.
“Thou art the ‘Warrior’!” a voice speaks loudly
“The giant now by every nation fear’d—
I know thee well; yet bear thyself less proudly,
For where thy valour? hath it yet appear’d?
“Profane it not, this holy haunt of glory,
Where England’s blood once dyed the azure sea;
Where many a hero dear to England’s story
In ocean-grave now rests, immortally;
“Where Albion’s Titan sons once bled for honour,—
Lions in battle! and by Triumph crown’d!
Bow to the fame that Albion’s children won her,
Pause at the spot where so much fame was found!
“See here around those glorious chiefs in battle,
Whose laurels hide the sparkling of the waves—
For England’s sake rejoicing in war’s rattle,
For England’s sake now summon’d from their graves—
“See here, the ‘Victory’! by morning’s glory
Illumined, streaming still with England’s blood!
And see ye not, me?—Nelson! now before ye!
And by my side, my comrade, Collingwood?
“The whole world’s cause was ours, in those achievements—
The world was with us, proud of our renown—
When England’s weal was bought by dread bereavements,
And with our death we paid her deathless crown!
“We all have left the grave where we were sleeping;
While midnight reigns, we break the fatal spell;
And like good seamen still our watch are keeping
On the blue sea, where we so gladly fell.
“You know that England always hath expected
That every man his duty should fulfil;
In hearts, alas! so lowly now dejected—
Ye will scarce fight as brave men always will!
“Oh, have ye lost the sailor’s soul of daring,
That none will venture now the deck to tread?
Oh, were ye born in England? Thus self-caring,—
Is that old England’s banner overhead?”
Still onward goes the iron giant, wheeling;
No sound is heard, no voice speaks in reply;
And, far removed from aught of envious feeling,
The ghostly voice of Nelson echoed high.
“Ye are no more the sons of Albion’s rearing,
Thus barricaded behind sheathèd wall:
For you the warrior-music hath no cheering
With which we, erst, so often led the ball!
“Lies England’s lion sick, and old and weary?
Where is the spirit that in ye was born?
Have our old sailor-songs no power to cheer ye?
Is ‘Rule Britannia’ now a thing to scorn?
“You speak not—shame, I ween, your souls possessing
Of that huge bulk which doth your lives invest—
Shame seizes you,—in inmost hearts confessing
That e’en the name of ‘Warrior’ is a jest.
“Strange doves are ye of peace,—with shame bespatter’d,—
Dead olive branch ye bear unto the earth—
For with your armour all belief is shatter’d
In manly truth, and nobleness, and worth.
“Call you it combat,—thus, all metal-plated,—
Like scaly dragon—thus the bullet’s hail
To meet? By your own valour not elated,
But fortified by your safe coat of mail!
“It is no combat when, like furious cattle,
Men dash the horned front in monstrous gloom;
It is no combat where in ocean battle
No palm of glory waves above the tomb.
“Oh, call ye combat, dark extermination
Where foes smite foemen whom they cannot see!
A man was born for nobler aspiration,
And as a victim will not daring be.
“For ye prepare but sacrificial ravage
Of human hecatombs, for ocean’s roar—
Combat is honour, slaughter is but savage:
Murder is yours—ye combat now no more!
“And still your soul strives on, to make perfected
New means to shiver and destroy the earth:
Yet this task shall ye never find effected—
This He alone can do, who gave it birth.
“Yet shall such warfare—with the aid of sages—
(Seeking alone to shatter and undo)—
Found, at the end, that peace of future ages
Which in Atlantis dreamers did foreshow.
“And men will love more warmly then each other
When Hate no further triumph can invent;
And men shall find the love as of a brother
The best device Hate’s schemings to prevent.
“And men shall love:—he who shall love most dearly
Shall be the victor in the world’s new strife;
And to a rainbow then shall change all clearly
This sulphurous smoke with which the air is rife.
“Then go your ways! Ye shall be victors truly;
Your iron prows point to man’s fairer lot;
Yet neither ‘Warriors’ nor ‘Conquerors,’ duly,
Can ye be named,—since ye combat not!
“The time is near—wherefore should we conceal it?—
When war shall live alone in poet-lore,
And for our fame each story shall reveal it,
Speaking as of the Mastodons of yore.
“As monsters of the past shall we live ever—
As giants with war’s madness half-sublime;
In picture, fable, song,—all shall endeavour
To paint us thus, unto the after-time.
“A pigmy ‘after-time,’ we must proclaim ye!
As war-ships? No! we know ye, heed ye not!
For where men fight, they risk—the truth should shame ye—
To fight with visors ever closely shut!
“Yours is, at best, a base lot, and untoward—
To be the founders of a lesser age;
Swallows of peace, and welcomed by the coward!
Peace, based on dread of battle’s noblest rage!”
So spake the hero of the Nile, whose valour
Made red the waves of glorious Trafalgar;
While o’er the sea the dawn’s pure radiant pallor
Made faint the brightness of the morning star.
Then onward stole the daylight’s flowing motion,
Driving to shade the forms of that weird fleet:
Nought but the “Warrior’s” weight upon the ocean
Is seen ahead, the watcher’s eye to greet.
And then from out its sides there rises, slowly,
A cloud of smoke that hides the ship of mail:
Ashamed that heroes thus should prize her lowly—
The flag of England droops behind a veil.