Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REID AT FAYAL, by JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REID AT FAYAL, by                    
First Line: A cliff-locked port and a bluff sea wall
Last Line: In tale and song.
Subject(s): Azores; General Armstrong (ship); Mountains; Reid, Samuel Chester (1783-1861); War Of 1812; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


A CLIFF-LOCKED port and a bluff sea wall,
And a craggy rampart, brown and bold;
Proud Pico's bastions towering tall,
And a castle dumb and cold.

The scream of a gull where a porpoise rolls;
And the flash of a home-bound fisher's blade,
Where the ghostly boom of the drumfish tolls
For wrecks that the surf has made.

A grim dun ridge, and a thin gray beach,
And the swish and the swash of the sleepless tide;
And the moonlight masking the reef's long reach,
Where the lurking breakers bide.

And under the castle's senseless walls
(Santa Cruz, old and cold and dumb),
Where only the prying sea-mew calls,
And the harbor beetles hum,

A Yankee craft at her cable swings:
"All's well!" the cheery lookout sings.
But the skipper counts his sleeping crew,
His guns, and his drowsy ensign, too.
-- Says he, "They'll do!"

For the skipper marks, tho' he makes no sign,
Frigate and corvette and ship of the line,
Rounding the headland into the light:
"Three Union Jacks and a moonlight night!"
-- Says he, "We'll fight!"

Twelve launches cutting the silver bay;
Twenty score boarders called away.
And it's "Lively, hearties, and let her go!"
With a rouse and a cheer and a "Yeo, ho, ho!"
-- Says Reid, "Lie low!"

'T is a song of havoc the rowlocks sing,
And Death marks time in the rower's swing;
'T is a baleful glow on the spouting spray,
As the keels in their cruel lust make way.
"Now, up and slay!"

Now up and play in the mad old game --
Axe and cutlass, fury and flame!
White breasts red-wat in the viler muck,
Proud hearts hurled back in the sprawling ruck.
-- Says Reid, "Well struck!"

Pike and pistol and dripping blade
(So are the ghosts and the glory made);
A curse for a groan, and a cheer for a yell;
Pale glut of Hate and red rapture of Hell!
-- Says Reid, "All's well!"

All's well for the banner that dances free,
Where the mountains are shouting the news to the sea.
All's well for the bold, and all's ill for the strong,
In the fight and the flight that shall hold us long,
In tale and song.





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