Part 5 (1/2)

”You cannot understand that. Let it be.

You cannot understand, nor know, nor share.

This is a matter touching only me; My sketch may be a daub, for aught I care.

You may be right. But even if you were, Your mocking should not stop this work of mine; Rot though it be, its prompting is divine.

”You cannot understand that--you, and you, And you, you Bosun. You can stand and jeer, That is the task your spirit fits you to, That you can understand and hold most dear.

Grin, then, like collars, ear to donkey ear, But let me daub. Try, you, to understand Which task will bear the light best on G.o.d's hand.”

V

The wester came as steady as the Trades; Brightly it blew, and still the s.h.i.+p did shoulder The brilliance of the water's white c.o.c.kades Into the milky green of smoky smoulder.

The sky grew bluer and the air grew colder.

Southward she thundered while the westers held, Proud, with taut bridles, pawing, but compelled.

And still the Dauber strove, though all men mocked, To draw the splendour of the pa.s.sing thing, And deep inside his heart a something locked, Long p.r.i.c.king in him, now began to sting-- A fear of the disasters storm might bring; His rank as painter would be ended then-- He would keep watch and watch like other men.

And go aloft with them to man the yard When the great s.h.i.+p was rolling scuppers under, Burying her snout all round the compa.s.s card, While the green water struck at her and stunned her; When the lee-rigging slacked, when one long thunder Boomed from the black to windward, when the sail Booted and spurred the devil in the gale

For him to ride on men: that was the time The Dauber dreaded; then the test would come, When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks with slime, And all the air was blind with flying sc.u.m; When the drenched sails were furled, when the fierce hum In weather riggings died into the roar Of G.o.d's eternal never tamed by sh.o.r.e.

Once in the pa.s.sage he had worked aloft, s.h.i.+fting her suits one summer afternoon, In the bright Trade wind, when the wind was soft, Shaking the points, making the tackle croon.

But that was child's play to the future: soon He would be ordered up when sails and spars Were flying and going mad among the stars.

He had been scared that first time, daunted, thrilled, Not by the height so much as by the size, And then the danger to the man unskilled In standing on a rope that runs through eyes.

”But in a storm,” he thought, ”the yards will rise And roll together down, and snap their gear!”

The sweat came cold upon his palms for fear.

Sometimes in Gloucester he had felt a pang Swinging below the house-eaves on a stage.

But stages carry rails; here he would hang Upon a jerking rope in a storm's rage, Ducked that the sheltering oilskin might a.s.suage The beating of the storm, clutching the jack, Beating the sail, and being beaten back.

Drenched, frozen, gasping, blinded, beaten dumb, High in the night, reeling great blinding arcs As the s.h.i.+p rolled, his chappy fingers numb, The deck below a narrow blur of marks, The sea a welter of whiteness shot with sparks, Now snapping up in bursts, now dying away, Salting the horizontal snow with spray.

A hundred and fifty feet above the deck, And there, while the s.h.i.+p rolls, boldly to sit Upon a foot-rope moving, jerk and check, While half a dozen seamen work on it; Held by one hand, straining, by strength and wit To toss a gasket's coil around the yard, How could he compa.s.s that when blowing hard?

And if he failed in any least degree, Or faltered for an instant, or showed slack, He might go drown himself within the sea, And add a bubble to the clipper's track.

He had signed his name, there was no turning back, No pardon for default--this must be done.

One iron rule at sea binds everyone.

Till now he had been treated with contempt As neither man nor thing, a creature borne On the s.h.i.+p's articles, but left exempt From all the seamen's life except their scorn.

But he would rank as seaman off the Horn, Work as a seaman, and be kept or cast By standards set for men before the mast.

Even now they s.h.i.+fted suits of sails; they bent The storm-suit ready for the expected time; The mighty wester that the Plate had lent Had brought them far into the wintry clime.

At dawn, out of the shadow, there was rime, The dim Magellan Clouds were frosty clear, The wind had edge, the testing-time was near.

And then he wondered if the tales were lies Told by old hands to terrify the new, For, since the s.h.i.+p left England, only twice Had there been need to start a sheet or clew, Then only royals, for an hour or two, And no seas broke aboard, nor was it cold.

What were these gales of which the stories told?

The thought went by. He had heard the Bosun tell Too often, and too fiercely, not to know That being off the Horn in June is h.e.l.l: h.e.l.l of continual toil in ice and snow, Frostbitten h.e.l.l in which the westers blow Shrieking for days on end, in which the seas Gulf the starved seamen till their marrows freeze.