The Fate Of Henry Hudson.

I, Louis Marin, mariner, born on the Breton coast,             Must pass from earth away,             And, because wild remorse             Pursues me--is my curse,             My guilty hand this day     Will write down of the crime that haunts my death-bed like a ghost.             In sixteen hundred ten,             Bold Hudson and his men     Left London town behind with its castles, towers and fanes,             The crew were twenty-three,             Which, alas! included me     When the good ship Discovery went sailing down the Thames             We were all picked men and strong,             We took willing hearts along             Yes, our hearts were bold and brave             Every eye was keen and bright,             When the wild Atlantic wave             Hid the homeland from our sight     On a voyage of discovery bound to win a high renown,     That on the line of years our names be proudly handed down     As, with merry hearts and light, we flew on before the blast,     We little dreamed this voyage was ordained to be our last     All full of reckless venture and so fearless--could we know     Hope beckoned on a path of fame to lure us into woe,     As we sailed into the frozen seas, the place of ice and snow,     We sighted the ominous Farewell Cape     And steered north through drift ice up Baffin's Strait     Oh, lonely and drear to the weary eye     Were the vast ice-fields floating slowly by     Not a blade of grass not a leaf to tell     That the summer verdure was possible     Round the pale horizon, the aching sight     Met an awful vastness of barren white,     As if earth lay beneath the chilly sky     Struck to death by Gehazi's leprosy     We sailed on, and round us on every hand,     On the darkling wave, on the desert strand,     On the rock-bound coast, on the icy cape,     The ice heaved up in wild fantastic shape;     In mountain, and mosque, and cathedral dome,     Lofty peak, and column, and minaret,     And ponderous arches in order set,             Tower and spire and pinnacle high,             Soaring up to the deep blue sky     Statues ice sculptured, frost work and fret,     That had some weird likeness to sights at home.     On and on we sailed through the waters dark,     Where the damp fog clung like a witch's veil,     And hid from the faces of watchers pale,     The dangers that crowded around our bark,     In this, the birth-place of the snow and mist.     Icebergs by the low clouds covered and kissed,     Clustered round us like ghosts to bar our way;     While the sharp sleet drove on the icy blast,     Cutting through the foam of the seething spray,     Sheathing in ice both sail and mast,     Northward still northward we sailed away.     The wild air was thick with flurrying snow;     The winds broken loose, raging, swept and swirled,     Heaping mountain drifts on hummock and floe,             Deadly that wind as the cannon's breath,             To crush out life with the blast of death.     Wreathing winding sheets round an Arctic world.     Upon that wild day, on that dreadful day!     Amid grinding noises of crash and jar,     With the winds and snow, waves and ice at war,     In their wildest fury and greatest might,     We drove with the storm into that wide bay,     That forever will keep our captain's name,     And embalm in horror his death and fame,     And around us closed in the Arctic night.     Our ship was caught in jaws of ice,     That closed on it, held it as in a vice,     Ice was around us mountains high     Its dazzling spear points pierced the sky,             In every shape of vast and wild,             Heaps upon heaps were tossed and hurled,             Mountain on mountain roughly piled,             The chaos of an icy world     It was a ghastly, beautiful sight,     The rosy flush of the Northern Light,     Lances of splendour shot through the sky     And blood-red banners were waved on high,     Creatures of light darted to and fro,     Dancing in mockery of our woe,     Unrolling with their luminous hands     Belts of glory, and quivering bands     Of heaving, pulsing, transparent green,     Throwing out light in shimmering waves,     That spread into a tremulous sea     Of wavering glowing brilliancy,     Clothing the heavens in delicate sheen,     From which darts, and arrows, and tongues of fire     Glancing in splendour higher and higher     Wove themselves into a glorious crown,     Letting bright streamers hang wavering down,     Until brilliant sea and crown of beams     Faded to mist like fairy dreams             Vanishing all away, away,     Away behind ice wall and icy caves,             Leaving us in the moonlight grey,     Pale skeletons sitting by frozen graves     We in our misery cared not,     For splendours that mocked our wretched lot,     We were locked in a place by God forgot             He did not care             For sigh or prayer,     For He never answered to help or bless,     But death and fell sickness and loathsomeness     Of disease that cometh from extreme cold,     Joined to cow the hearts of the brave and bold,     The provisions rotted within the hold,     And the worm eaten bread was foul to use.     Sufferings and agonies manifold     Gathered round the end of that fatal cruise.     The spring kept away so late, oh so late!     Through death our numbers waxed feeble and few;     And when famine sat down among the crew,     Came both sullen anger and fiery hate,     And we hardened our hearts and cursed our fate.     Some deserted to speedily fall and freeze     Some, swollen and blue with the fell disease,     Blasphemed and called on the saints in turn     With choking utterance and livid tongue.             We cursed the captain to his face             For bringing us to this wretched case.     He sat among us gloomy and stern,     His venturous heart was with anguish wrung;             While silent and sad             Was the little lad,             His only son,             Once so full of fun     When he sailed on the cruise that had no return.     Sitting in our misery on a night,     Fresh wonders burst on our awe-struck sight;             For the stars were raining out of the sky,     In a fiery shower, falling thick and fast;     Yea, and horrible sounds were on the blast,     Of crash and jar, and shivering moan,     As of rending earth; and all nature's groan             Were sent to warn us the end was nigh.     With awe-struck gladness we looked around,     Waiting to hear the last trumpet sound.     From living death in that desolate Bay,     We had sprung to welcome the judgment day;     Although in the pit should our lot be cast,     So that this our great woe should end at last.     The bleak spring came, the ice did part;     Devils entered each sailor's heart;     No blessed thoughts sweetened our wretched lives,     Of the distant mother's, sweethearts, and wives;     Of innocent pleasures we valued most,             In the greenwood haunts of our childhood's home,     In sweet English vale, or bold Breton coast,             That we left to sail on the salt sea foam.     We launched the boat--we, the wicked crew--     Strong in the evil we meant to do,     To leave the most helpless ones behind--     The men who were loathsome, sick and blind.     We tumbled them in without sail or oar;             We forced in the captain and his son;             And when the horrible crime was done     We mocked them and told them to go ashore.     O, Mighty God of the sea and land!     Where hadst Thou hidden Thy strong right hand;     That this should happen under the sky,     And be looked at by Thy All-seeing eye     For we spread our sails to leave that spot,     Secure in that God regarded not.     As we steered the ship away, away,     From the boat that rocked on that dismal Bay,     There arose from the wretches left behind,     Helpless by famine, sick and blind,     A cry that would pierce through iron bars;             The despairing groan             Of those left alone     Passed through the ranks of the shivering stars,             To the dreadful God on His holy throne.     When out of that accursed Bay,     Southward, homeward we sailed away.     We had favouring winds, we hurried fast,     Had our sails been of the hurricane's blast,     Our guilt so surrounded and hemmed us in     That we could not sail away from our sin;     For all nature knew that we had done     The awfullest deed beneath the sun     Our burning eyes were forbid to weep,     We lost the rest of the blessed sleep;     For scared by dreams and terrified     By visions, leaving us weary-eyed,     We knew that the tempter's work was done,     We had staked our souls and the fiend had won.     I stood one night at the wheel alone:             Stars in millions were in the sky,             Every star an accusing eye;     I heard again that horrible groan     Of horror, of helpless terror and pain,     I had hoped to nevermore hear again--             The cry of those we had left alone.     The sky was changed, an angry glare     Lit up the billows, and through the air     Flaming swords flashed in invisible hands,     Ready to execute God's commands.     The solemn light of the pale moon's glance     Glowed with the wrath of His countenance.     At the far horizon shadowy things     Shod with the lightning, with fiery wings,             Were darting with messages to and fro,     I saw them flitting on, noiseless, swift,     Through the holy vail of luminous mist,             Where God was apportioning our woe.     I knew the time had come when He meant     To mete out to us our punishment.     An awful voice from the maintop fell:             "Where is the captain and sick of the crew?"     It filled my brain with the pains of hell;             The cold sweat started like drops of dew.     My hair stood up--for, over the side,     On the rolling swell of the heaving tide,             Gliding along on the crest of a wave,     I saw, in the moonlight's shimmering track,             Our messmates, the feeble, sick and blind,             That leagues away we had left behind;     To the vessel groping their blind way back     Coming again to join the crew;             Led by the captain looking as brave,     As full of command, as he used to do     The wave heaved up to the bulwark's side,             And one after one they stepped on board.     Dead men, with eyes that opened wide             With the stare of blindness--gracious Lord!     One of them groped his way abaft,             And laid his swollen hand on the wheel.     His hand that in death was clammy and damp;     His blind eyes stared at the binnacle lamp,             As if the dead hand had nerves of steel,     He altered the ship's course in spite of me             Who could only stare at him and gasp,             For I was in the nightmare's grasp.     Fiends in the air around me laughed;     But the dead man worked on all silently,     Nor noticed the ecstacy of my fears;     Yet he was a man I had known for years.     A messmate at sea, a comrade on shore,     And in jolly carouse, in wassail roar.     My holiday time with him I spent     When I was of life-blood innocent;     But he never looked or spoke to me,     But steered away from the open sea.     Towards the shore beyond the desolate strait,     Where suffering and crime had been so great.     Dead hands pulled the ropes and trimmed the sails,     But no cheery cries the night wind hails.     They worked the ship like men who slept             But steadily, oh so steadily!     They took in sail, the watch they kept,             And groped about blindly, silently.     Fore and aft on the waves swarmed fiendish things,     Vile creatures that seemed to be heads with wings.             Like a shoal of porpoises millions strong,     Alive with motion that could not rest,     Twisting out ropes from the breaker's crest,     From the fleecy foam of the yeasty spray,     With hands that appeared and vanished away;     Chattering, they towed the ship along;     And we, the living, stood looking on,     Until that horrible night was gone.     When the grey of dawn came in the sky,     With a scream and a cheer the fiends vanished;     Over the side filing silently     Went our messmates, the corpses swollen and dead,     Gliding over the waves with the vanishing night     Till the low clouds covered them up from our sight.     We, like men who have got respite from pain,     Put about the ship toward home again,     The sails swelled out with a favouring wind;     The coast of horrors we left behind.     And cheerily sailed in the blessed light;     But the ghosts of the crew came back at night.     Whatever distance we gained by day.     They steered us back in the moonlight grey.     How it came to pass I can never tell,     But I thought of God in the jaws of hell--     Through my despair came the thought that He     Was a helper in extremity     For the first time in my wandering years,     My burning eyes felt the bliss of tears     Like refreshing dew on soul and sense     Fell the softening grace of penitence     The Grace Divine that maketh whole,     Stole into the darkness of my soul     Sad thoughts were rising into prayer,             By the wheel on the night air chill and raw     The ghost of my messmate stood by me,             And looked in my face with eyes that saw     The blue lips said "Be awake, and aware,             The enchanted ship will touch the shore,     Fly then from us, and you will be free,             Your penance of suffering will be o'er     But the rest, for the deed that they have done     Shall sail on without rest beneath the sun."     I made my escape when we reached the shore,     And I saw the ship and the crew no more     Alone I laid myself down to die,     No human aid, as I thought, was nigh             I longed for death, I was not afraid     I was found by roving hunter bands,     Brought back to life by merciful hands,             The hands of a dark skinned Indian maid.     She nursed me with skill and tenderness,     And recovered me from loathsomeness     But the day has come and the hours draw nigh,     When I, Louis Marin, must surely die     I write down my crime, that soon or late     The world may know Captain Hudson's fate     I write of our crime and our sufferings,     Of vengeance that follows, remorse that stings     Messmates remember though crime is done,     In the lonest spot beneath the sun,     Where footstep of man has never trod,     It's under the eye of an avenging God.     He comes near, a Swift Witness, with intent     That they who sow crime shall reap punishment.