and now, behold, this Ranolf once again
Tossing, a Student-Sailor, on the main.

Here are some fragments written home from sea,
Two in his earlier Sailor life, and three
His later. Of his character they show
Some traits, perchance. Then pardon us, although
Beguiled, dear Reader, at this stage too long,
(Alas, for sins of inartistic Song!)
O prithee pardon, if with little skill
We fling these scraps together—skip who will!

1

"A noble sport—and my delight
That reefing topsails! just to make all right,
Ere the wind freshens to a gale at night.
See! clambering nimbly up the shrouds.
Go, thick as bees, the sailor-crowds;
The smartest for the post of honour vie
That weather yardarm pointing to the sky:
page 70 They gather at the topmast-head
And dark against the darkling cloud
Sidling along the foot-ropes spread:
Dim figures o'er the yardarm bowed,
How with the furious Sail, a glorious sight,
Up in the darkness of the Sky they fight!
While by the fierce encounter troubled
The heavy pitching of the Ship is doubled;
The big Sail's swelling, surging volumes, full
Of wind, the strong reef-tackle half restrains;
And like some lasso-tangled bull
Checked in its raid career of savage might
O'er far La Plata's plains,
It raves and tugs and plunges to get free
And flaps and bellows in its agony!
But slowly yielding to its scarce-seen foes
Faint and more faint its frenzied struggling grows;
Till, by its frantic rage at length
Exhausted, like that desert-ranger's strength,
Silent and still, it seems to shrink and close;
Then, tight comprest, the reef-points firmly tied,
Down to the deck again the sailors glide;
And easier now, with calm concentred force,
The Ship bounds forward on her lightened course."

2.

"Once, 'twas my watch below, (worse luck!)
A sudden squall the vessel struck:
With half my clothes about me thrown
I rushed on deck—what havoc there!
The topsails from the bolt-ropes blown,
page 71 Topgallant masts and royals gone,
And huddled sails and shattered spars
And tangled tackle every where;
While all amazed, our gallant tars
Stood at the sudden wreck aghast,
Nor seemed to heed the swift commands
The Captain shouted through the blast,
The heaving staysail swagged and swung
As from the strained jibboom it hung:
Of course with some sharp words addrest
To two or three, our smartest hands.
Forward I jumped to do my best
They followed quick;—the lightest,
I The bowsprit's end could safest try;
We grasped the frail spaT like grim death,
And shut our eyes and held our breath,
Clinging with tightened arms and knees
When o'er us dashed successive seas
And blinded, ducked, and drenched us, till
Seizing the chance of every lull
To look and lash and tug and pull,
We furled the sail and got it still;
Though no one knew as there we clung
How badly was the bowsprit sprung.
But when I 'lighted on the deck
Shaking the water off the good
White-headed Master, who had stood,
He told me since, in breathless mood
(His heart was in his mouth, he said
While looking on, for very dread)
Threw his old arms about my neck,
God bless you!' cried he,' my brave Son!
Twas nobly, beautifully done!
page 72 The safety of my Ship and Crew
This blessed day—I swear 'tis true,
Is owing, under God, to you! '—

Mother! ten times the risk I'd run
To have such praise declared my due,
By such a gallant Seaman too!"

3

"How grandly—when throughout the silent day,
Some ample Day, serene, divine,
Beneath the glowing Line
Our helpless Ship had hung as in a trance
In light-blue glassiness of calm that lay
A wide expanse
Encircled by soft depths of ether clear,
Whose melting azure seemed to swim
Surcharged and saturate with balmiest brilliancy—
How grandly solemn was the Day's decline!
Down as if wholly dropped from out the Sky
The fallen Sun's great disc would lolling lie
Upon the narrowed Ocean's very rim,
Awfully near!
A hush of expectation almost grim
Wrapt all the pure, blank, empty hemisphere;
While straight across the gleaming crimson floor,
From the unmoving Ship's black burnished side,
There ran a golden pathway right into the core
Of all that throbbing splendour violet-dyed;
Whither it seemed an easy task to follow
The liquid ripples tremblingly o'erflowing
page 73 Into the intense and blinding hollow
Of palpitating purple, showing
The way as through an open door
Into some world of burning bliss, undreamt of here to fore.—
Whose heart would not have swelled, the while
Deep adoration and delight came o'er him
At that stupendous mystery, close before him!
Not less, but more stupendous that he knew
Perchance, whate'er the subtle surface-play
Of Science had to teach of level ray
Reflected or refracted; and could say,
Nay, almost count the millions to a mile,
How far away
That pure quintessence of dark fire, deep-lying
In fathomless Flame-Oceans round him flying,
His inconceivable circumference withdrew:
Knew all about the fringe of flames that frisk
In ruddy dance about his moon-masked face,
Set on like petals round a sunflower's disc—
Each glorious petal shooting into space
Ten times as far as Earth's vast globe is thick:
Aye! or could prate about full many a world
Worn out, and, crushed to cinders, flying fleet,
Or in cold black rotundity complete,
Into his burning bosom headlong hurled,
Just by collision to strike out fresh heat,
And feed with flame, renew and trim,
And keep for aye from falling dim
That monstrous and immeasurable wick—
Say rather—everlastingly keep bright
That awful, mystic, God-created Light!"

4

"Naraka—Niflheim—Tartarus—or Tophet!
From what dead heart and poor unpicturing brain,—
Too dull to see or realize
Its own demoniac phantasies—
Of Bonze, Skald, Brahman, talapoin, or prophet—
Goth, Syrian. Greek, or old Hindu,
Of Aryan or Semitic strain—
Came singly or from all upgrew
That rank arch-blasphemy and dream insane
Of torture-gulfs where Infinite Love
All human guess or gauge above
Preserves in fiery suffocation
The myriads of its own creation?
I care not—I; but when came
On deck in darkness yesternight,
That very place appeared to be
Laid bare before my startled sight:
For far and wide in pale effulgence dire,
One boundless ghastly welter of white fire,
The Ocean rolled; a hoary Sea
Of awful incandescence rolled and broke away
In bursts of fire spray—tongues of lambent flame
That writhed and tossed in burning play,
And with a baleful glare
Put out the stars—quenched what mild radiance fell
From the clear skies, as that unhallowed spell
Of blighting Superstition can outblaze
With its fierce coruscations of despair
The genuine rays
page 75 Of light from Heaven that fall like dew,
Divine illuminings serene and true.
And yet such thoughts did ill beseem
This vision—so would any deem,
And other lore and wiser learn,
Who o'er the taffrail marked the excess
And marvel of the loveliness
Of those swift-whirling volumes of soft light
Fast-flashing with gold star-drops sparkling bright
In myriads through the alabaster glow—
Those spangled gyres and wreaths of dazzling snow
That still in wide expanding trail
Went roaring off her stern
So grandly as our Vessel through
The surging phosphorescence flew,
Streaming behind her, as the snowy plumes
Of those rich birds the Aztecs old
Reared at their royal Town of Gold,
Stream when at dusk they slowly sail
Streaking the depth of Amazonian glooms.
Ah! surely no sound heart these glories seeing
Would thence derive the notion of a Being
Creating only to destroy;
Or framing Phlegethons and fire-washed caves
Swarming with frenzied Spirits thicker than these waves
With millions of medusae all alight with joy!"

5

"St. Lawrence! yes, I well remember
Thy Gulf—that morning in September.—
Fast flew our Ship careering lightly
Over the waters breaking brightly;
page 76 Alongside close as if their aim
Were but her vaunted speed to shame,
Sleek, porpoises like lightening went
Cleaving the sunny element;
Now where the black bows smote their way
How would they revel in the roaring spray!
Like victors in the contest now
Dash swift athwart the flying prow;
Or springing forward three abreast
Shoot slippery o'er each foamy crest—
Shoot upwards in an airy arc
As three abreast they passed the bark:—
Pied petrels coursed about the sea
And skimmed the billows dexterously;
Sank with each hollow, rose with every hill,
So close, yet never touched them till
They seized their prey with rapid bill:—
Afar, the cloudy spurts of spray
Told that the grampus sported there
With his ferocious mates at play.
Meanwhile the breeze that freshly blew
From every breaking wavetop drew
A plume of smoke that straightway from the sun
The colours of the rainbow won,
So that you saw wherever turning
A thousand small volcanoes burning.
Emitting vapours of each hue
Of orange, purple, red and blue.
The Sky meanwhile was all alive
With snow-bright clouds that seemed to drive
Swiftly, as though the Heavens in glee
Were racing with the racing Sea:
Each flitting sight and rushing sound
Spread life and hope and joy around;
page 77 Ship, birds and fishes, Sky and ocean
All restless with one glad emotion!—
But what a change! when suddenly we spy
Apart from all that headlong revelry—
Pencilled above the sky-line, like a Spectre drear,
A silent Iceberg solemnly appear,—
Pausing ghost-like our greeting to a wait.—
The crystal Mountain, as we come a near
And feel the airs that from it creep
So chilling o'er the sunny Deep,
Discloses—while it slowly shifts
Now blue, faint-glistening semilucent clifts,
Now melancholy peaks, dead-white and desolate,
But comes it not, this guest unbidden
This wanderer from a home far-hidden,
Dim herald of the mysteries of the Pole
With tidings from that cheerless region fraught—
Comes it not o'er us like the sudden Thought,
The haunting phantom of a World apart,
The blank and silent Apparition
That, ever prompt to gain serene admission,
Lurks on the crowded confines of the heart,
The many-pictured purlieus of the Soul;
Nay, sometimes thrusts its unexpected presence
Upon our brightest tinted hours of pleasaunce?—
That Polar realm is ransacked—known—
And all the World of Matter, still
Lies pervious to determined will:
And shall the World of Spirit never
Its secrets yield to true endeavour?—
Five thousand years have doubtless shown
But little of that Spirit-zone:
For Science is a Child as yet
At hornbook rude and primer set:
page 78 And Man is just emerging from the past
Eternity of Darkness; from the vast
Æons and ages of a measureless Night,
Rubbing his eyes at the unwonted light:
How should he read all things aright
And say what can or cannot be—or utter
Out of his heart the Universe, whose growth
And whole existence yet is but the flutter
Of an ephemeral water-moth?
Take fifty thousand years—a span
In the conceivable career of Man;
Think you, with riper knowledge—skill profounder—
No grand explorers, bolder, sounder,
Will break into that Spirit-zone—reveal
Not iron-bound realms of ruthless ice and snow
Or narrow straits where freezing waters flow,
No shooting lights, or shifting gleams—
But prospects trustier than the dance and play
Protean of those dumb magnetic storms—
Auroras lovelier than our sanguine dreams
Of fondest Inspiration—Forms
Of Being more essentially divine
Than all that in Thought's topmost triumphs shine?
And prove how real the region whence our stray
And shadowy intimations find their way;
With what true signs and tokens rife
Those glimmering dreams and fine forebodings steal
Into the circle of our little day,
Into the glad familiar Sea of Life? "