The Loss of the Eurydice

THE Eurydice--it concerned thee, O Lord:Three hundred souls, O alas! on board,Some asleep unawakened, all un-warned, eleven fathoms fallen

Where she foundered! One strokeFelled and furled them, the hearts of oak!And flockbells off the aerialDowns' forefalls beat to the burial.

For did she pride her, freighted fully, onBounden bales or a hoard of bullion?--Precious passing measure,Lads and men her lade and treasure.

She had come from a cruise, training seamen--Men, boldboys soon to be men:Must it, worst weather,Blast bole and bloom together?

No Atlantic squall overwrought herOr rearing billow of the Biscay water:Home was hard at handAnd the blow bore from land.

And you were a liar, O blue March day.Bright sun lanced fire in the heavenly bay;But what black Boreas wrecked her? heCame equipped, deadly-electric,

A beetling baldbright cloud thorough EnglandRiding: there did storms not mingle? andHailropes hustle and grind theirHeavengravel? wolfsnow, worlds of it, wind there?

Now Carisbrook keep goes under in gloom;Now it overvaults Appledurcombe;Now near by Ventnor townIt hurls, hurls off Boniface Down.

Too proud, too proud, what a press she bore!Royal, and all her royals wore.Sharp with her, shorten sail!Too late; lost; gone with the gale.

This was that fell capsize,As half she had righted and hoped to riseDeath teeming in by her portholesRaced down decks, round messes of mortals.

Then a lurch forward, frigate and men;'All hands for themselves' the cry ran then;But she who had housed them thitherWas around them, bound them or wound them with her.

Marcus Hare, high her captain,Kept to her--care-drowned and wrapped inCheer's death, would followHis charge through the champ-white water-in-a-wallow.

All under Channel to bury in a beach herCheeks: Right, rude of feature,He thought he heard say'Her commander! and thou too, and thou this way.'

It is even seen, time's something server,In mankind's medley a duty-swerver,At downright 'No or yes?'Doffs all, drives full for righteousness.

Sydney Fletcher, Bristol-bred,(Low lie his mates now on watery bed)Takes to the seas and snowsAs sheer down the ship goes.

Now her afterdraught gullies him too down;Now he wrings for breath with the deathgush brown;Till a lifebelt and God's willLend him a lift from the sea-swill.

Now he shoots short up to the round air;Now he gasps, now he gazes everywhere;But his eye no cliff, no coast orMark makes in the rivelling snowstorm.

Him, after an hour of wintry waves,A schooner sights, with another, and saves,And he boards her in Oh! such joyHe has lost count what came next, poor boy.--

They say who saw one sea-corpse coldHe was all of lovely manly mould,Every inch a tar,Of the best we boast our sailors are.

Look, foot to forelock, how all things suit! heIs strung by duty, is strained to beauty,And brown-as-dawning-skinnedWith brine and shine and whirling wind.

O his nimble finger, his gnarled grip!Leagues, leagues of seamanshipSlumber in these forsakenBones, this sinew, and will not waken.

He was but one like thousands more,Day and night I deploreMy people and born own nation,Fast foundering own generation,

I might let bygones be--our curseOf ruinous shrine no hand or, worse,Robbery's hand is busy toDress, hoar-hallowed shrines unvisited;

Only the breathing temple and fleetLife, this wildworth blown so sweet,These daredeaths, ay this crew, inUnchrist, all rolled in ruin--

Deeply surely I need to deplore it,Wondering why my master bore it,The riving off that raceSo at home, time was, to his truth and grace

That a starlight-wender of ours would sayThe marvellous Milk was Walsingham WayAnd one--but let be, let be:More, more than was will yet be.--

O well wept, mother have lost son;Wept, wife; wept, sweetheart would be one:Though grief yield them no goodYet shed what tears sad truelove should.

But to Christ lord of thunderCrouch; lay knee by earth low under:'Holiest, loveliest, bravest,Save my hero, O Hero savest.

And the prayer thou hearst me makingHave, at the awful overtaking,Heard; have heard and grantedGrace that day grace was wanted.'

Not that hell knows redeeming,But for souls sunk in seemingFresh, till doomfire burn all,Prayer shall fetch pity eternal.