Dauber V

The wester came as steady as the Trades;Brightly it blew, and still the ship did shoulderThe brilliance of the water's white cockadesInto 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 passing thing,And deep inside his heart a something locked,Long pricking 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 yardWhen the great ship was rolling scuppers under,Burying her snout all round the compass card,While the green water struck at her and stunned her;When the lee-rigging slacked, when one long thunderBoomed from the black to windward, when the sailBooted and spurred the devil in the gale

For him to ride on men: that was the timeThe Dauber dreaded; then the test would come,When seas, half-frozen, slushed the decks with slime,And all the air was blind with flying scum;When the drenched sails were furled, when the fierce humIn weather riggings died into the roarOf God's eternal never tamed by shore.

Once in the passage he had worked aloft,Shifting 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: soonHe would be ordered up when sails and sparsWere 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 unskilledIn standing on a rope that runs through eyes."But in a storm," he thought, "the yards will riseAnd roll together down, and snap their gear!"The sweat came cold upon his palms for fear.

Sometimes in Gloucester he had felt a pangSwinging below the house-eaves on a stage.But stages carry rails; here he would hangUpon a jerking rope in a storm's rage,Ducked that the sheltering oilskin might assuageThe 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 arcsAs the ship 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 ship rolls, boldly to sitUpon a foot-rope moving, jerk and check,While half a dozen seamen work on it;Held by one hand, straining, by strength and witTo toss a gasket's coil around the yard,How could he compass 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 contemptAs neither man nor thing, a creature borneOn the ship's articles, but left exemptFrom 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 castBy standards set for men before the mast.

Even now they shifted suits of sails; they bentThe storm-suit ready for the expected time;The mighty wester that the Plate had lentHad 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 liesTold by old hands to terrify the new,For, since the ship left England, only twiceHad 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 tellToo often, and too fiercely, not to knowThat being off the Horn in June is hell:Hell of continual toil in ice and snow,Frostbitten hell in which the westers blowShrieking for days on end, in which the seasGulf the starved seamen till their marrows freeze.

Such was the weather he might look to find,Such was the work expected: there remainedFirmly to set his teeth, resolve his mind,And be the first, however much it pained,And bring his honour round the Horn unstained,And win his mates' respect; and thence, untainted,Be ranked as man however much he painted.

He drew deep breath; a gantline swayed aloftA lower topsail, hard with rope and leather,Such as men's frozen fingers fight with oftBelow the Ramirez in Cape Horn weather.The arms upon the yard hove all together,Lighting the head along; a thought occurredWithin the painter's brain like a bright bird:

That this, and so much like it, of man's toil,Compassed by naked manhood in strange places,Was all heroic, but outside the coilWithin which modern art gleams or grimaces;That if he drew that line of sailor's facesSweating the sail, their passionate play and change,It would be new, and wonderful, and strange.

That that was what his work meant; it would beA training in new vision--a revealingOf passionate men in battle with the sea,High on an unseen stage, shaking and reeling;And men through him would understand their feeling,Their might, their misery, their tragic power,And all by suffering pain a little hour;

High on the yard with them, feeling their pain,Battling with them; and it had not been done.He was a door to new worlds in the brain,A window opening letting in the sun,A voice saying, "Thus is bread fetched and ports won,And life lived out at sea where men existSolely by man's strong brain and sturdy wrist."

So he decided, as he cleaned his brasses,Hearing without, aloft, the curse, the shoutWhere the taut gantline passes and repasses,Heaving new topsails to be lighted out.It was most proud, however self might doubt,To share man's tragic toil and paint it true.He took the offered Fate: this he would do.

That night the snow fell between six and seven,A little feathery fall so light, so dry--An aimless dust out of a confused heaven,Upon an air no steadier than a sigh;The powder dusted down and wandered bySo purposeless, so many, and so cold,Then died, and the wind ceased and the ship rolled.

Rolled till she clanged--rolled till the brain was tired,Marking the acme of the heaves, the pauseWhile the sea-beauty rested and respired,Drinking great draughts of roller at her hawse.Flutters of snow came aimless upon flaws."Lock up your paints," the Mate said, speaking light:"This is the Horn; you'll join my watch to-night!"