The Shallop on Hudson Bay

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea,And only one! For never ship but mineHas dared these waters. We were first,My men, to battle in between the bergsAnd floes to these wide waves. This gulf is mine;I name it! and that flying sail is mine!And there, hull-down below that flying sail,The ship that staggers home is mine, mine, mine!My ship Discoverie!The sullen dogsOf mutineers, the bitches' whelps that snatchedTheir food and bit the hand that nourished them,Have stolen her. You ingrate Henry Greene,I picked you from the gutter of Houndsditch,And paid your debts, and kept you in my house,And brought you here to make a man of you!You Robert Juet, ancient, crafty man,Toothless and tremulous, how many timesHave I employed you as a master's mateTo give you bread? And you Abacuck Prickett,You sailor-clerk, you salted puritan,You knew the plot and silently agreed,Salving your conscience with a pious lie!Yes, all of you--hounds, rebels, thieves! Bring backMy ship!Too late,--I rave,--they cannot hearMy voice: and if they heard, a drunken laughWould be their answer; for their minds have caughtThe fatal firmness of the fool's resolve,That looks like courage but is only fear.They'll blunder on, and lose my ship, and drown;Or blunder home to England and be hanged.Their skeletons will rattle in the chainsOf some tall gibbet on the Channel cliffs,While passing mariners look up and say:"Those are the rotten bones of Hudson's menWho left their captain in the frozen North!"

O God of justice, why hast Thou ordainedPlans of the wise and actions of the braveDependent on the aid of fools and cowards?

Look,--there she goes,--her topsails in the sunGleam from the ragged ocean edge, and dropClean out of sight! So let the traitors goClean out of mind! We'll think of braver things!Come closer in the boat, my friends. John King,You take the tiller, keep her head nor'west.You Philip Staffe, the only one who choseFreely to share our little shallop's fate,Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship,--Too good an English sailor to desertYour crippled comrades,--try to make them restMore easy on the thwarts. And John, my son,My little shipmate, come and lean your headAgainst my knee. Do you remember stillThe April morn in Ethelburga's church,Five years ago, when side by side we kneeledTo take the sacrament with all our men,Before the Hopewell left St. Catherine's docksOn our first voyage? It was then I vowedMy sailor-soul and yours to search the seaUntil we found the water-path that leadsFrom Europe into Asia.I believeThat God has poured the ocean round His world,Not to divide, but to unite the lands.And all the English captains that have daredIn little ships to plough uncharted waves,--Davis and Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher,Raleigh and Gilbert,--all the other names,--Are written in the chivalry of GodAs men who served His purpose. I would claimA place among that knighthood of the sea;And I have earned it, though my quest should fail!For, mark me well, the honour of our lifeDerives from this: to have a certain aimBefore us always, which our will must seekAmid the peril of uncertain ways.Then, though we miss the goal, our search is crownedWith courage, and we find along our pathA rich reward of unexpected things.Press towards the aim: take fortune as it fares!

I know not why, but something in my heartHas always whispered, "Westward seek your goal!"Three times they sent me east, but still I turnedThe bowsprit west, and felt among the floesOf ruttling ice along the Greenland coast,And down the rugged shore of Newfoundland,And past the rocky capes and wooded baysWhere Gosnold sailed,--like one who feels his wayWith outstretched hand across a darkened room,--I groped among the inlets and the isles,To find the passage to the Land of Spice.I have not found it yet,--but I have foundThings worth the finding!Son, have you forgotThose mellow autumn days, two years ago,When first we sent our little ship Half-Moon,--The flag of Holland floating at her peak,--Across a sandy bar, and sounded inAmong the channels, to a goodly bayWhere all the navies of the world could ride?A fertile island that the redmen calledManhattan, lay above the bay: the landAround was bountiful and friendly fair.But never land was fair enough to holdThe seaman from the calling of the sea.And so we bore to westward of the isle,Along a mighty inlet, where the tideWas troubled by a downward-flowing floodThat seemed to come from far away,--perhapsFrom some mysterious gulf of Tartary?Inland we held our course; by palisadesOf naked rock; by rolling hills adornedWith forests rich in timber for great ships;Through narrows where the mountains shut us inWith frowning cliffs that seemed to bar the stream;And then through open reaches where the banksSloped to the water gently, with their fieldsOf corn and lentils smiling in the sun.Ten days we voyaged through that placid land,Until we came to shoals, and sent a boatUpstream to find,--what I already knew,--We travelled on a river, not a strait.

But what a river! God has never pouredA stream more royal through a land more rich.Even now I see it flowing in my dream,While coming ages people it with menOf manhood equal to the river's pride.I see the wigwams of the redmen changedTo ample houses, and the tiny plotsOf maize and green tobacco broadened outTo prosperous farms, that spread o'er hill and daleThe many-coloured mantle of their crops.I see the terraced vineyard on the slopeWhere now the fox-grape loops its tangled vine,And cattle feeding where the red deer roam,And wild-bees gathered into busy hivesTo store the silver comb with golden sweet;And all the promised land begins to flowWith milk and honey. Stately manors riseAlong the banks, and castles top the hills,And little villages grow populous with trade,Until the river runs as proudly as the Rhine,--The thread that links a hundred towns and towers!Now looking deeper in my dream, I seeA mighty city covering the isleThey call Manhattan, equal in her stateTo all the older capitals of earth,--The gateway city of a golden world,--A city girt with masts, and crowned with spires,And swarming with a million busy men,While to her open door across the bayThe ships of all the nations flock like doves.My name will be remembered there, the worldWill say, "This river and this isle were foundBy Henry Hudson, on his way to seekThe Northwest Passage."Yes, I seek it still,--My great adventure and my guiding star!For look ye, friends, our voyage is not done;We hold by hope as long as life endures!Somewhere among these floating fields of ice,Somewhere along this westward widening bay,Somewhere beneath this luminous northern night,The channel opens to the Farthest East,--I know it,--and some day a little shipWill push her bowsprit in, and battle through!And why not ours,--to-morrow,--who can tell?The lucky chance awaits the fearless heart!These are the longest days of all the year;The world is round and God is everywhere,And while our shallop floats we still can steer.

So point her up, John King, nor'west by northWe'll keep the honour of a certain aimAmid the peril of uncertain ways,And sail ahead, and leave the rest to God.