Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped, We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead. Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea! By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and sheered, Woman, Man, or God, or Devil, was there anything we feared? Was it storm? Our fathers faced it, and a wilder never blew ; Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through. Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death? Nay, our very babes would mock you, had they time for idle breath. But to-day I leave the galley, and another takes my place; There's my name upon the deck-beam-let it stand a little space. The Galley Slave I am free to watch my messmates beating out to open main, Free of all that Life can offer -save to handle sweep again. By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal; By eyes grown old with staring through the sunwash on the brine, I am paid in full for service-would that service still were mine! Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth, Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North. When the niggers break the hatches, and the decks are gay with gore, And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore. She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare, When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there. Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by, To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die. Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, - shipped away Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day, When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath, And the top-men clear the raffle with their claspknives in their teeth. It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar. But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then? God be thanked—whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with men! L'ENVOI (To whom it may concern.) The smoke upon your Altar dies, The Goddess of your sacrifice Has flown away. What profit, then, to sing or slay "We know the Shrine is void," they said, "The Goddess flown - Yet wreaths are on the Altar laid The Altar-Stone Is black with fumes of sacrifice, Albeit She has fled our eyes. "For, it may be, if still we sing And tend the Shrine, Some Deity on wandering wing May there incline; And, finding all in order meet, Stay while we worship at Her feet." |