Dauber I

Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck,All work aboard was over for the hour,And some men sang and others played at check,Or mended clothes or watched the sunset glower.The bursting west was like an opening flower,And one man watched it till the light was dim,But no one went across to talk to him.

He was the painter in that swift ship's crew,Lampman and painter--tall, a slight-built man,Young for his years, and not yet twenty-two;Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan.Bullied and damned at since the voyage"Being neither man nor seaman by his tally,"He bunked with the idlers just abaft the galley.

His work began at five; he worked all day,Keeping no watch and having all night in.His work was what the mate might care to say;He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin;His dungarees were smeared with paraffin."Go drown himself" his round-house mates advised him,And all hands called him "Dauber" and despised him.

Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar,Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side,Slushing his hands to get away the tar,And then he washed himself and rinsed and dried;Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager eyed,He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there stoodWatching the gold of heaven turn to blood.

They stood there by the rail while the swift shipTore on out of the tropics, straining her sheets,Whitening her trackway to a milky strip,Dim with green bubbles and twisted water meets,Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and cleats,Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts leaned:They watched how the seas struck and burst and greened.

Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side."Why did you come to sea, painter?" he said."I want to be a painter," he replied,"And know the sea and ships from A to Z,And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead;Ships under skysails running down the Trade--Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer made.

"But there's so much to learn, with sails and ropes,And how the sails look, full or being furled,And how the lights change in the troughs and slopes,And the sea's colours up and down the world,And how a storm looks when the sprays are hurledHigh as the yard (they say) I want to see;There's none ashore can teach such things to me.

"And then the men and rigging, and the wayShips move, running or beating, and the poiseAt the roll's end, the checking in the sway--I want to paint them perfect, short of the noise;And then the life, the half-decks full of boys,The fo'c'sles with the men there, dripping wet:I know the subjects that I want to get.

"It's not been done, the sea, not yet been done,From the inside, by one who really knows;I'd give up all if I could be the one,But art comes dear the way the money goes.So I have come to sea, and I supposeThree years will teach me all I want to learnAnd make enough to keep me till I earn."

Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved,Drawing the leap of water off the sideWhere the great clipper trampled iron-hooved,Making the blue hills of the sea divide,Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride,And leaping on full tilt with all sails drawing,Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, pawing.

"I cannot get it yet--not yet," he said;"That leap and light, and sudden change to green,And all the glittering from the sunset's red,And the milky colours where the bursts have been,And then the clipper striding like a queenOver it all, all beauty to the crown.I see it all, I cannot put it down.

"It's hard not to be able. There, look there!I cannot get the movement nor the light;Sometimes it almost makes a man despairTo try and try and never get it right.Oh, if I could--oh, if I only might,I wouldn't mind what hells I'd have to pass,Not if the whole world called me fool and ass."

Down sank the crimson sun into the sea,The wind cut chill at once, the west grew dun."Out sidelights!" called the mate. "Hi, where is he?"The Boatswain called, "Out sidelights, damn you! Run!""He's always late or lazing," murmured one--"The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon the tintsOf red and green passed on dark water-glints.

Darker it grew, still darker, and the starsBurned golden, and the fiery fishes came.The wire-note loudened from the straining spars;The sheet-blocks clacked together always the same;The rushing fishes streaked the seas with flame,Racing the one speed noble as their own:What unknown joy was in those fish unknown!

Just by the round-house door, as it grew dark,The Boatswain caught the Dauber with, "Now, you;Till now I've spared you, damn you! now you hark:I've just had hell for what you didn't do;I'll have you broke and sent among the crewIf you get me more trouble by a particle.Don't you forget, you daubing, useless article!

"You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port Mahon!"Then came the Cook's "Is that the Dauber there?Why don't you leave them stinking paints alone?They stink the house out, poisoning all the air.Just take them out." "Where to?" "I don't care where.I won't have stinking paint here." From their plates:"That's right; wet paint breeds fever," growled his mates.

He took his still wet drawings from the berthAnd climbed the ladder to the deck-house top;Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth,For two ship's boys were putting on the strop:One, clambering up to let the skylight drop,Saw him bend down beneath a boat and layHis drawings there, till all were hid away,

And stand there silent, leaning on the boat,Watching the constellations rise and burn,Until the beauty took him by the throat,So stately is their glittering overturn;Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearnWith banners rising and falling, and passing byOver the empty silence of the sky.

The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails,Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night,The high trucks traced on heaven and left no trails;The moonlight made the topsails almost white,The passing sidelight seemed to drip green light.And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright bows;He sighed, "I'll never do't," and left the house.

"Now," said the reefer, "up! Come, Sam; come, Si,Dauber's been hiding something." Up they slid,Treading on naked tiptoe stealthilyTo grope for treasure at the long-boat skid."Drawings!" said Sam. "Is this what Dauber hid?Lord! I expected pudding, not this rot.Still, come, we'll have some fun with what we've got."

They smeared the paint with turpentine untilThey could remove with mess-clouts every traceOf quick perception caught by patient skill,And lines that had brought blood into his face.They wiped the pigments off, and did erase,With knives, all sticking clots. When they had done.Under the boat they laid them every one.

All he had drawn since first he came to sea,His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them there.They chuckled then to think how mad he'd beFinding his paintings vanished into air.Eight bells were struck, and feet from everywhereWent shuffling aft to muster in the dark;The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red spark.

Names in the darkness passed and voices cried;The red spark glowed and died, the faces seemedAs things remembered when a brain has died,To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed.Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed,And on the clipper rushed with tossing mast,A bath of flame broke round her as she passed.

The watch was set, the night came, and the menHid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep,Bunched like the dead; still, like the dead, as whenPlague in a city leaves none even to weep.The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep;The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars:South-west by south she staggered under the stars.

Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awakeThinking of his unfitness for the sea.Each failure, each derision, each mistake,There in the life not made for such as he;A morning grim with trouble sure to be,A noon of pain from failure, and a nightBitter with men's contemning and despite.

This in the first beginning, the green leaf,Still in the Trades before bad weather fell;What harvest would he reap of hate and griefWhen the loud Horn made every life a hell?When the sick ship lay over, clanging her bell,And no time came for painting or for drawing,But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing?

Hell, he expected,--hell. His eyes grew blind;The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled,And then a gush of pity calmed his mind.The cruel torment of his thought was muffled,Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman shuffled,Humming his song, and through the open doorA moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor.

The green bunk curtains moved, the brass rings clicked,The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning,The moonbeams' moving finger touched and picked,And all the stars in all the sky were burning."This is the art I've come for, and am learning,The sea and ships and men and travelling things.It is most proud, whatever pain it brings."

He leaned upon his arm and watched the lightSliding and fading to the steady roll;This he would some day paint, the ship at night,And sleeping seamen tired to the soul;The space below the bunks as black as coal,Gleams upon chests, upon the unlit lamp,The ranging door hook, and the locker clamp.

This he would paint, and that, and all these scenes,And proud ships carrying on, and men their minds,And blues of rollers toppling into greens,And shattering into white that bursts and blinds,And scattering ships running erect like hinds,And men in oilskins beating down a sailHigh on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail.

With faces ducked down from the slanting driveOf half-thawed hail mixed with half-frozen spray,The roaring canvas like a thing alive,Shaking the mast, knocking their hands away,The foot-ropes jerking to the tug and sway,The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims,And icicles on the south-wester brims.

And sunnier scenes would grow under his brush,The tropic dawn with all things dropping dew,The darkness and the wonder and the hush,The insensate grey before the marvel grew;Then the veil lifted from the trembling blue,The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the rose,All the expanse of heaven a mind that glows.

He turned out of his bunk; the Cook still tossed,One of the other two spoke in his sleep.A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam crossed;Outside there was the ship, the night, the deep."It is worth while," the youth said; "I will keepTo my resolve, I'll learn to paint all this.My Lord, my God, how beautiful it is!"

Outside was the ship's rush to the wind's hurry,A resonant wire-hum from every rope,The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry,The leaning masts in their majestic slope,And all things strange with moonlight: filled with hopeBy all that beauty going as man bade,He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells were made.