Carolina Chansons Part 9

II

And I had gone-- It seemed no man's work then-- To buy supplies from "good friends" at the North-- Two years at old St. Louis and then down the river, Past winking lights of towns and federal rams, In flat-boats with a precious freight of barrels, Marked for the Yankees; but one night We supped past their last fort And floated down to Vicksburg through the dark.

How dull the lanterns glimmered at the quay!

But there was welcome, too, Proud, thankful hands, To take the medicine and powder, And unload sorghum barrels That we might change to quinine and to gold, If we could ever get them to Na.s.sau.

The column which they printed in the "News"

On wall-paper, first made me think That it was worth-while man's work after all.

Then, out across the miles of leaguered states, Through pine-barrens where frowsy men in gray Lay with their wounded in the haggard camps-- A glimpse of old times in Atlanta Like a last febrile glow in well-loved eyes.

Now rolling in flat cars, trundling to the sea, Back of the bull-head, wood-devouring engines.

At last by night to Charleston Just before the iron ring closed-- Ours was the last freight train of the war, Before the anaconda squeezed; But I had won (perhaps) if we could get Those precious barrels to England or Na.s.sau.

How changed my city was-- The gra.s.s grew in her streets, And there were blackened ruins raw with fire; A few old darkies crept along her ways; The busy thunder of the drays was gone; And ruin spoke with statue lips.

Only a glimmering candle lurked in landward windows, Dim through s.h.i.+mmering shutter c.h.i.n.ks-- Silence--silence was over all--no bells-- St. Michael's were in hiding, And St. Philip's spoke another voice, And rung a blatant dirge to bluecoats, far [11]In old Virginia, with Lee's batteries.

The miles of cotton rotted on the wharfs, And the _Swamp Angel_ belled with distant shocks Like earthquake jars; There was heat-lightning in the sky That G.o.d had never made, From our sea-island batteries; And once a sh.e.l.l fell somewhere in the town With a despairing scream that hope was dead.

Such were the streets-- And it was starving time in houses Where fat generosity once ran amuck, No fires in inns, no cheerful bark of hounds, Or stroke of social hoofs upon the stones.

And the long docks bit the black water Like old loosened fangs that held the sea In one last grinning jaw-clamp of despair.

I knew those docks When at the hour of noon A molten clangor s.h.i.+vered cheerful air And thousand s.h.i.+p-bells rang-- And now--only a drifting buoy-bell rung The knell of hope with its emphatic tongue, Cut loose by the blockaders To wander down the harbor in despair.

III

Close in the shadow of a warehouse lay The blockade-runner with her smokestacks gray, Back-raking like her masts, and up her hatches Came voices, and the furnace-light in patches Beat on the sails, and there alone was life-- The stevedores sang m.u.f.fled s.n.a.t.c.hes, and a strife Of bales and barrels streamed down her yawning hold; Cotton more valuable than money, And barrels of the St. Louis sorghum and mola.s.ses, Honey to lure the bees of English gold.

Three days she lay, this arrow-pointed boat, With a light gold necklace, beaded at her throat, Something there was about her like a stoat That lies in wait to make a silent rush, And there was something in her like a thrush, For she had paddle-wheels, each like a wing.

She had a long hornet stern that seemed to hold a sting.

Sometimes her paddles slowly turned, For they kept steam up, waiting for a gale.

It seemed as if the slim boat chafed and yearned To go h.e.l.l-tearing under steam and sail.

The oily water churned And made a _slap-slap_ to the paddles' stroke; And a high painted canvas screen cut off The blue haze of the lightwood smoke.

On the third evening, just at sunset, came A scud of driving cloud; the lightning's flame; The sun glared from a vicious, misty socket, And in the moaning twilight curved a rocket While a blue flame blurred and frayed At Castle Pinckney; thus we knew the storm Had s.h.i.+fted the blockade.

IV

Out from the docks we shot Into the screaming night; We steered by lightning's light; The paddles beat a mad tattoo; The gridded walking-beam Pumped up, pumped down, Against the misty gleam; Faster and faster jets the stand-pipes' steam.

And the white water whirls Astern in phosph.o.r.escent whorls-- It swirls And then leads backward green with light Of streaming foam across the velvet night.

By the last lightning flare, That must be Sumter, bare Against a torn cloud like a rag; But now the wind begins to flag, And as it fails the engines lag; Then comes a low hail from the mast "Avast"-- Again the engines slow-- Then stop-- And we were drifting like a log As silent as a drowned corpse In the sea-set tide, m.u.f.fled in dripping fog.

No word from all the s.h.i.+p-- She seemed asleep-- Only the cluck of water and the feel Of grim Atlantic rollers at the keel, Nuzzling two fathoms deep; They made her heel.

The porpoise played about our copper lip.

It seemed as if they were The only living things in all that blur, And we-- The only s.h.i.+p upon an ancient sea.

When suddenly a laugh broke through the spell; It was so near Our pulses lapsed a heart-beat, Struck with fear.

The curtains of the fog were blown apart; Stark in the sallow moonlight's metal day, The white decks of a Yankee frigate lay.

I saw the glint of moonlight on her bell; She was not twenty fathoms length away.

A man's face leaped out in the cherry glow Of match flame in the hands he cupped About the pipe whose curling wreaths he supped.

"Clang!" like a fireman's gong Our engine signals rang; The paddles thrashed into a frothy song; Five s.h.i.+p's lengths we had forged along Before their bugles sang.

We had ten long lengths on them Before their s.h.i.+p began to swerve.

The rabid screw was frothing at her stern; But I could feel the verve Of our blithe timbers tremble; every nerve Of our good race-horse s.h.i.+p For open water seemed to yearn.

That was a t.i.tan's race; The answering rockets snaked it down the coast, Dying like scarlet worms Among the fog-wreaths; but we gained, And when her flaming cannon stabbed the mist They thundered at our ghost.

So we were gone, With cotton in our furnace, Once the aft-stacks flared, And then we plied pitch-pine Dampened with turpentine, Until the black sea glared-- But we had gone-- Over the world's round shoulder Thrust the dawn, Their ugly, black masts dipping it hull down.

Three days the paddles beat while we drove on!

And I had won; For on the fourth day as I sat In the black coffin-shadow of a boat, The burning decks a-wash with lime-white sun, I saw the graybeard lookout swell his throat And utter forth a glad and bronze hurrah, "_Land Ho_!" he cried-- We lined the windward side To cheer the was.h.i.+ng palm tops of Na.s.sau.

H.A.

[11] See the note on the chimes at back of book.

BEYOND DEBATE

Out from the wrought-iron gate Miss Perdee drives in state; Miss Perdee wears the thin smile And the sleeves of 1888.

Miss Perdee's face is stifled as a sonnet; Upon her wire-tight hair a duck-shaped bonnet Nests, nodding with a _cachepeigne_ Of violets on it.

East Bay, some tea and talk, them home by King.

The horses have an antiquated plod; The team is old, but not too old to balk If driven north of Broad.

Miss Perdee wears the sure air of a queen, Which only queens and Perdees can achieve.

The Perdees had blue blood in Adam's veins When Adam had the rib he gave to Eve.

Back through the wrought-iron gate Miss Perdee drives in state.

Miss Perdee lives down on the Battery!

Beyond debate.

H.A.

MARSH TACKIES[12]

Browsing on the salty marsh gra.s.s, Barrel-ribbed and blowsy-bellied, With a neigh as shrill as whistles And their mouths red-raw from thistles, I have seen the brown _marsh tackies_, Hiding in the swamps at Kiawah, With the gray mosquito patches Gory on their s.h.a.ggy thatches.

Balky, vicious, and degenerates, They are small as Spanish jennets, But their sires were with El Tarab, When he conquered Andalusia For the Prophet and the Arab; And they came with Ponce de Leon, When the Spaniard made a _peon_ And a Christian of the Carib.

Peering from palmetto thickets At some fort's coquina wickets, Startled Indians saw them grazing, Thunder-stamping and amazing As the beasts from other stars, When they galloped down savannas, And their masters seemed centaurs With the new white metal blazing.

Thus they came, these little beasts, With the men-at-arms and priests, In the west with Coronado When he reached the Colorado, In the east with bold De Soto In the search for El Dorado, And they packed the bells and toys That the chieftains loved like boys; Struggling through the swamps and briars After dons and tonsured friars; Dying in the forests dismal, Till the shrill of silver clarion Brought the buzzards to the carrion Round the smoke of lonely fires In a continent abysmal.