Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DEATH-BOAT OF HELIGOLAND, by THOMAS CAMPBELL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DEATH-BOAT OF HELIGOLAND, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Can restlessness reach the cold sepulchred head
Last Line: Named their faction -- I blot not my page with its name.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


CAN restlessness reach the cold sepulchred head? --
Ay, the quick have their sleep-walkers, so have the dead.
There are brains, though they moulder, that dream in the tomb,
And that maddening forehear the last trumpet of doom,
Till their corses start sheeted to revel on earth,
Making horror more deep by the semblance of mirth:
By the glare of new-lighted volcanoes they dance,
Or at mid-sea appall the chill mariner's glance.
Such, I wot, was the band of cadaverous smile
Seen ploughing the night-surge of Heligo's isle.

The foam of the Baltic had sparkled like fire,
And the red moon looked down with an aspect of ire;
But her beams on a sudden grew sick-like and gray,
And the mews that had slept clanged and shrieked far away --
And the buoys and the beacons extinguished their light,
As the boat of the stony-eyed dead came in sight,
High bounding from billow to billow; each form
Had its shroud like a plaid flying loose to the storm;

With an oar in each pulseless and icy-cold hand,
Fast they ploughed, by the lee-shore of Heligoland,
Such breakers as boat of the living ne'er crossed;
Now surf-sunk for minutes again they uptossed,
And with livid lips shouted reply o'er the flood
To the challenging watchman that curdled his blood --
"We are dead -- we are bound from our graves in the west,
First to Hecla, and then to ----" Unmeet was the rest
For man's ear. The old abbey bell thundered its clang,
And their eyes gleamed with phosphorous light as it rang:
Ere they vanished, they stopped, and gazed silently grim,
Till the eye could define them, garb, feature, and limb.

Now who were those roamers? -- of gallows or wheel
Bore they marks, or the mangling anatomist's steel?
No! -- by magistrates' chains 'mid their grave-clothes you saw,
They were felons too proud to have perished by law;
But a riband that hung where a rope should have been,
'Twas the badge of their faction, its hue was not green,
Showed them men who had trampled and tortured and driven
To rebellion the fairest Isle breathed on by Heaven, --
Men whose heirs would yet finish the tyrannous task,
If the Truth and the Time had not dragged off their mask.
They parted -- but not till the sight might discern
A 'scutcheon distinct at their pinnace's stern,
Where letters, emblazoned in blood-colored flame,
Named their faction -- I blot not my page with its name.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net