"Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Stanch and
strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all
disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"
The merchant's word
Delighted the Master heard;
For
his heart was in his work, and the heart
Giveth grace
unto every Art.
A quiet smile played round his lips,
As the eddies and dimples of the tide
Play round the bows
of ships,
That steadily at anchor ride.
And with a
voice that was full of glee,
He answered, "Erelong we
will launch
A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch,
As ever weathered a wintry sea!"
And first with nicest
skill and art,
Perfect and finished in every part,
A
little model the Master wrought,
Which should be to the
larger plan
What the child is to the man,
Its
counterpart in miniature;
That with a hand more swift and
sure
The greater labor might be brought
To answer to
his inward thought.
And as he labored, his mind ran o'er
The various ships that were built of yore,
And above them
all, and strangest of all
Towered the Great Harry, crank
and tall,
Whose picture was hanging on the wall,
With
bows and stern raised high in air,
And balconies hanging
here and there,
And signal lanterns and flags afloat,
And eight round towers, like those that frown
From some
old castle, looking down
Upon the drawbridge and the
moat.
And he said with a smile, "Our ship, I wis,
Shall be of another form than this!"
It was of another
form, indeed;
Built for freight, and yet for speed,
A
beautiful and gallant craft;
Broad in the beam, that the
stress of the blast,
Pressing down upon sail and mast,
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm;
Broad in the beam,
but sloping aft
With graceful curve and slow degrees,
That she might be docile to the helm,
And that the
currents of parted seas,
Closing behind, with mighty
force,
Might aid and not impede her course.
In the
ship-yard stood the Master,
With the model of the vessel,
That should laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and
whirlwind wrestle!
Covering many a rood of ground,
Lay the timber piled around;
Timber of chestnut, and elm,
and oak,
And scattered here and there, with these,
The
knarred and crooked cedar knees;
Brought from regions far
away,
From Pascagoula's sunny bay,
And the banks of
the roaring Roanoke!
Ah! what a wondrous thing it is
To note how many wheels of toil
One thought, one word,
can set in motion!
There's not a ship that sails the
ocean,
But every climate, every soil,
Must bring its
tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden
wall!
The sun was rising o'er the sea,
And long
the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would
be
Of some great, airy argosy.
Framed and launched in
a single day.
That silent architect, the sun,
Had hewn
and laid them every one,
Ere the work of man was yet
begun.
Beside the Master, when he spoke,
A youth,
against an anchor leaning,
Listened, to catch his
slightest meaning.
Only the long waves, as they broke
In ripples on the pebbly beach,
Interrupted the old man's
speech.
Beautiful they were, in sooth,
The old man
and the fiery youth!
The old man, in whose busy brain
Many a ship that sailed the main
Was modelled o'er and
o'er again;--
The fiery youth, who was to be
the heir
of his dexterity,
The heir of his house, and his
daughter's hand,
When he had built and launched from land
What the elder head had planned.
"Thus," said he,
"will we build this ship!
Lay square the blocks upon the
slip,
And follow well this plan of mine.
Choose the
timbers with greatest care;
Of all that is unsound
beware;
For only what is sound and strong
to this
vessel stall belong.
Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine
Here together shall combine.
A goodly frame, and a goodly
fame,
And the UNION be her name!
For the day that
gives her to the sea
Shall give my daughter unto thee!"
The Master's word
Enraptured the young man heard;
And as he turned his face aside,
With a look of joy and a
thrill of pride,
Standing before
Her father's door,
He saw the form of his promised bride.
The sun shone on
her golden hair,
And her cheek was glowing fresh and
fair,
With the breath of morn and the soft sea air.
Like a beauteous barge was she,
Still at rest on the
sandy beach,
Just beyond the billow's reach;
But he
Was the restless, seething, stormy sea!
Ah, how skilful
grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the
heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth
attain,
And he who followeth Love's behest
Far
excelleth all the rest!
Thus with the rising of the
sun
Was the noble task begun
And soon throughout the
ship-yard's bounds
Were heard the intermingled sounds
Of axes and of mallets, plied
With vigorous arms on every
side;
Plied so deftly and so well,
That, ere the
shadows of evening fell,
The keel of oak for a noble
ship,
Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong
Was
lying ready, and stretched along
The blocks, well placed
upon the slip.
Happy, thrice happy, every one
Who sees
his labor well begun,
And not perplexed and multiplied,
By idly waiting for time and tide!
And when the hot,
long day was o'er,
The young man at the Master's door
Sat with the maiden calm and still.
And within the porch,
a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The
father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great
September gales,
Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again,
The chance and
change of a sailor's life,
Want and plenty, rest and
strife,
His roving fancy, like the wind,
That nothing
can stay and nothing can bind,
And the magic charm of
foreign lands,
With shadows of palms, and shining sands,
Where the tumbling surf,
O'er the coral reefs of
Madagascar,
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As
he lies alone and asleep on the turf.
And the trembling
maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful,
pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery,
The
dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides and yet
unites mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume
The silent
group in the twilight gloom,
And thoughtful faces, as in
a dream;
And for a moment one might mark
What had been
hidden by the dark,
That the head of the maiden lay at
rest,
Tenderly, on the young man's breast!
Day by
day the vessel grew,
With timbers fashioned strong and
true,
Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,
Till,
framed with perfect symmetry,
A skeleton ship rose up to
view!
And around the bows and along the side
The heavy
hammers and mallets plied,
Till after many a week, at
length,
Wonderful for form and strength,
Sublime in
its enormous bulk,
Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!
And
around it columns of smoke, up-wreathing.
Rose from the
boiling, bubbling, seething
Caldron, that glowed,
And
overflowed
With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.
And amid the clamors
Of clattering hammers,
He who
listened heard now and then
The song of the Master and
his men:--
"Build me straight, O worthy Master.
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at
all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"
With oaken brace and copper band,
Lay the rudder on
the sand,
That, like a thought, should have control
Over the movement of the whole;
And near it the anchor,
whose giant hand
Would reach down and grapple with the
land,
And immovable and fast
Hold the great ship
against the bellowing blast!
And at the bows an image
stood,
By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes
of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the
wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a
Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master's daughter!
On many a dreary
and misty night,
'T will be seen by the rays of the
signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the
dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot
of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!
Behold, at last,
Each tall and tapering mast
Is swung into its place;
Shrouds and stays
Holding it firm and fast!
Long
ago,
In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon
mountain and plain
Lay the snow,
They fell,--those
lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
'Mid shouts
and cheers
The jaded steers,
Panting beneath the goad,
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings
so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming
hair,
And, naked and bare,
To feel the stress and the
strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar
Would remind them forevermore
Of their native forests
they should not see again.
And everywhere
The
slender, graceful spars
Poise aloft in the air,
And at
the mast-head,
White, blue, and red,
A flag unrolls
the stripes and stars.
Ah! when the wanderer, lonely,
friendless,
In foreign harbors shall behold
That flag
unrolled,
'T will be as a friendly hand
Stretched out
from his native land,
Filling his heart with memories
sweet and endless!
All is finished! and at length
Has come the bridal day
Of beauty and of strength.
To-day the vessel shall be launched!
With fleecy clouds
the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,
Slowly, in all
his splendors dight,
The great sun rises to behold the
sight.
The ocean old,
Centuries old,
Strong as
youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,
Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not
at rest;
And far and wide,
With ceaseless flow,
His
beard of snow
Heaves with the heaving of his breast.
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,
With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and
streamers gay,
In honor of her marriage day,
Her
snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a
veil descending,
Ready to be
The bride of the gray old
sea.
On the deck another bride
Is standing by her
lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like
the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.
The prayer is said,
The service read,
The joyous bridegroom bows his head;
And in tear's the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand
of his son,
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In
silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster
Down his
own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor--
The
shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for
its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping
ever from rock to rock--
Spake, with accents mild and
clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious
to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart
Of the
sailor's heart,
All its pleasures and its griefs,
All
its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents,
that flow
With such resistless undertow,
And lift and
drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings
and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he:--
"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward
bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats
and swings the horizon's bound,
Seems at its distant rim
to rise
And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And
then again to turn and sink,
As if we could slide from
its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,
It is not the
sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves
That rock
and rise
With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching
the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in
its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true
To the toil
and the task we have to do,
We shall sail securely, and
safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach
The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,
Will he those
of joy and not of fear!"
Then the Master,
With a
gesture of command,
Waved his hand;
And at the word,
Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and
below,
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking
away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She
starts,--she moves,--she seems to feel
The thrill of life
along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the
ocean's arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean
seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and
all her charms!"
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many
a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail
forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right
onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.
Sail forth into
the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And
safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy
comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and
trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the
wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O
UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless
on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What
Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast,
and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors
of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'T
is of the wave and not the rock;
'T is but the flapping
of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite
of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on
the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea
Our
hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our
hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er
our fears,
Are all with thee,--are all with thee! |
