Classic Poem

The stern old shepherd of the air,
The spirit of the whistling hair,
The wind, has risen drearily
In the Northern evening sea,
And is piping long and loud
To many a heavy upcoming cloud,—
Upcoming heavy in many a row,
Like the unwieldy droves below
Of seals, and horses of the sea,
That gather up as drearily,
And watch with solemn-visaged eyes
Those mightier movers in the skies.

'Tis evening quick;—'tis night:—the rain
Is sowing wide the fruitless main,
Thick, thick;—no sight remains the while
From the farthest Orkney isle,
No sight to sea-horse, or to seer,
But of a little pallid sail,
That seems as if 'twould struggle near,
And then as if its pinion pale
Gave up the battle to the gale.
Four chiefs there are of special note,
Labouring in that earnest boat;
Four Orkney chiefs, that yesterday
Coming in their pride away
From the smote Norwegian king,
Led their war-boats triumphing
Straight along the golden line
Made by morning's eye divine.
Stately came they, one by one,
Every sail beneath the sun,
As if he their admiral were
Looking down from the lofty air,
Stately, stately through the gold.—
But before that day was done,
Lo, his eye grew vexed and cold;
And every boat, except that one,
A tempest trampled in its roar;
And every man, except those four,
Was drenched and driving, far from home,
Dead and swift, through the Northern foam.

Four are they, who wearily
Have drunk of toil two days at sea;
Duth Maruno, steady and dark,
Cormar, Soul of the Wingèd Bark;
And bright Clan Alpin, who could leap
Like a torrent from steep to steep;
And he, the greatest of that great band,
Ronald of the Perfect Hand.

Dumbly strain they for the shore,
Foot to board, and grasp on oar,
The billows, panting in the wind,
Seem instinct with ghastly mind,
And climb like crowding savages
At the boat that dares their seas.
Dumbly strain they, through and through,
Dumbly, and half blindly too,
Drenched, and buffeted, and bending
Up and down without an ending,
Like ghostly things that could not cease
To row among those savages.
Ronald of the Perfect Hand
Has rowed the most of all that band;
And now he 's resting for a space
At the helm, and turns his face
Round and round on every side
To see what cannot be descried,
Shore, nor sky, nor light, nor even
Hope , whose feet are last in heaven.
Ronald thought him of the roar
Of the fight the day before,
And of the young Norwegian prince
Whom in all the worryings
And hot vexations of the fray,
He had sent with life away,
Because he told him of a bride
That if she lost him, would have died;
And Ronald then, in bitter case,
Thought of his own sweet lady's face,
Which upon this very night
Should have blushed with bridal light,
And of her downward eyelids meck,
And of her voice, just heard to speak,
As at the altar, hand in hand,
On ceasing of the organ grand,
'Twould have bound her, for weal or woe.
With delicious answers low.
And more he thought of, grave and sweet,
That made the thin tears start, and meet
The wetting of the insolent wave;
And Ronald who, though all so brave,
Had often that hard day before
Wished himself well housed on shore,
Felt a sharp impatient start
Of home-sick wilfulness at heart,
And steering with still firmer hand,
As if the boat could feel command,
Thrilled with a fierce and forward motion,
As though 'twould shoot it through the ocean.