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1
THE Eurydice—it concerned thee, O Lord: | |
| Three hundred souls, O alas! on board, | |
| Some asleep unawakened, all un- | |
| warned, eleven fathoms fallen | |
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2
Where she foundered! One stroke | 5 |
| Felled and furled them, the hearts of oak! | |
| And flockbells off the aerial | |
| Downs’ forefalls beat to the burial. | |
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3
For did she pride her, freighted fully, on | |
| Bounden bales or a hoard of bullion?— | 10 |
| Precious passing measure, | |
| Lads and men her lade and treasure. | |
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4
She had come from a cruise, training seamen— | |
| Men, boldboys soon to be men: | |
| Must it, worst weather, | 15 |
| Blast bole and bloom together? | |
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5
No Atlantic squall overwrought her | |
| Or rearing billow of the Biscay water: | |
| Home was hard at hand | |
| And the blow bore from land. | 20 |
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6
And you were a liar, O blue March day. | |
| Bright sun lanced fire in the heavenly bay; | |
| But what black Boreas wrecked her? he | |
| Came equipped, deadly-electric, | |
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7
A beetling baldbright cloud thorough England | 25 |
| Riding: there did stores not mingle? and | |
| Hailropes hustle and grind their | |
| Heavengravel? wolfsnow, worlds of it, wind there? | |
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8
Now Carisbrook keep goes under in gloom; | |
| Now it overvaults Appledurcombe; | 30 |
| Now near by Ventnor town | |
| It hurls, hurls off Boniface Down. | |
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9
Too proud, too proud, what a press she bore! | |
| Royal, and all her royals wore. | |
| Sharp with her, shorten sail! | 35 |
| Too late; lost; gone with the gale. | |
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10
This was that fell capsize, | |
| As half she had righted and hoped to rise | |
| Death teeming in by her portholes | |
| Raced down decks, round messes of mortals. | 40 |
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11
Then a lurch forward, frigate and men; | |
| ‘All hands for themselves’ the cry ran then; | |
| But she who had housed them thither | |
| Was around them, bound them or wound them with her. | |
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12
Marcus Hare, high her captain, | 45 |
| Kept to her—care-drowned and wrapped in | |
| Cheer’s death, would follow | |
| His charge through the champ-white water-in-a-wallow, | |
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13
All under Channel to bury in a beach her | |
| Cheeks: Right, rude of feature, | 50 |
| He thought he heard say | |
| ‘Her commander! and thou too, and thou this way.’ | |
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14
It is even seen, time’s something server, | |
| In mankind’s medley a duty-swerver, | |
| At downright ‘No or yes?’ | 55 |
| Doffs all, drives full for righteousness. | |
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15
Sydney Fletcher, Bristol-bred, | |
| (Low lie his mates now on watery bed) | |
| Takes to the seas and snows | |
| As sheer down the ship goes. | 60 |
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16
Now her afterdraught gullies him too down; | |
| Now he wrings for breath with the deathgush brown; | |
| Till a lifebelt and God’s will | |
| Lend him a lift from the sea-swill. | |
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17
Now he shoots short up to the round air; | 65 |
| Now he gasps, now he gazes everywhere; | |
| But his eye no cliff, no coast or | |
| Mark makes in the rivelling snowstorm. | |
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18
Him, after an hour of wintry waves, | |
| A schooner sights, with another, and saves, | 70 |
| And he boards her in Oh! such joy | |
| He has lost count what came next, poor boy.— | |
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19
They say who saw one sea-corpse cold | |
| He was all of lovely manly mould, | |
| Every inch a tar, | 75 |
| Of the best we boast our sailors are. | |
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20
Look, foot to forelock, how all things suit! he | |
| Is strung by duty, is strained to beauty, | |
| And brown-as-dawning-skinned | |
| With brine and shine and whirling wind. | 80 |
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21
O his nimble finger, his gnarled grip! | |
| Leagues, leagues of seamanship | |
| Slumber in these forsaken | |
| Bones, this sinew, and will not waken. | |
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22
He was but one like thousands more, | 85 |
| Day and night I deplore | |
| My people and born own nation, | |
| Fast foundering own generation. | |
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23
I might let bygones be—our curse | |
| Of ruinous shrine no hand or, worse, | 90 |
| Robbery’s hand is busy to | |
| Dress, hoar-hallowèd shrines unvisited; | |
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24
Only the breathing temple and fleet | |
| Life, this wildworth blown so sweet, | |
| These daredeaths, ay this crew, in | 95 |
| Unchrist, all rolled in ruin— | |
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25
Deeply surely I need to deplore it, | |
| Wondering why my master bore it, | |
| The riving off that race | |
| So at home, time was, to his truth and grace | 100 |
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26
That a starlight-wender of ours would say | |
| The marvellous Milk was Walsingham Way | |
| And one—but let be, let be: | |
| More, more than was will yet be.— | |
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27
O well wept, mother have lost son; | 105 |
| Wept, wife; wept, sweetheart would be one: | |
| Though grief yield them no good | |
| Yet shed what tears sad truelove should. | |
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28
But to Christ lord of thunder | |
| Crouch; lay knee by earth low under: | 110 |
| ‘Holiest, loveliest, bravest, | |
| Save my hero, O Hero savest. | |
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29
And the prayer thou hearst me making | |
| Have, at the awful overtaking, | |
| Heard; have heard and granted | 115 |
| Grace that day grace was wanted.’ | |
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30
Not that hell knows redeeming, | |
| But for souls sunk in seeming | |
| Fresh, till doomfire burn all, | |
| Prayer shall fetch pity eternal. | 120 |
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| See Notes. |
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