The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme The witch of Shiloh, the last of the Wampanoags, the gentle earl, the enchanted voyage |
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| 23. | XXIII |
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 | The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme |  |
XXIII
Thus Downing found himself the guest
Of ocean's wanderer and pest,
The fated guide of murderous waves,
The haunting ghoul of coraled graves.
Of ocean's wanderer and pest,
The fated guide of murderous waves,
The haunting ghoul of coraled graves.
High dialogue the strangers held,
As suited men of hoary eld.
Of that ennobled age they spoke
When all Iberia's empire broke
In floods of steel on Holland's shore,
And backward rolled, a flood of gore;
When Orange cheered the slender band
That stood for freedom, faith and land,
And cumbered breach and field and sea
With dead who left their country free;
When martyred cities, clothed in fire,
Saw victory's crown above the pyre;
And vain was Parma's wondrous art,
And vainly burst Don Juan's heart.
As suited men of hoary eld.
Of that ennobled age they spoke
When all Iberia's empire broke
In floods of steel on Holland's shore,
And backward rolled, a flood of gore;
When Orange cheered the slender band
That stood for freedom, faith and land,
And cumbered breach and field and sea
With dead who left their country free;
When martyred cities, clothed in fire,
Saw victory's crown above the pyre;
And vain was Parma's wondrous art,
And vainly burst Don Juan's heart.
For long our hero speechless heard,
With mouth agape like youngling bird,
Debating how such lordly names
And gallant deeds and shining fames
Could be no less unknown to him
Than things beyond creation's brim.
At last he stammered, musing much,
“I reckon those were ancient Dutch;
An' though I'm but a middlin' schollard
In history, I think I know,
For sartin sure, the graveyard swaller'd
Their strength an' glory long ago;
For Holland's sign come down a story
When Britain took to keepin' tavern,
An' Spain has got as weak an' hoary
As giant Pope in Bunyan's cavern.
So, on the whole an' ‘barrin’ errors,
I ruther guess those famous coots
Charged bagnets on the king of terrors
An' died, like sojers, in their boots.”
With mouth agape like youngling bird,
Debating how such lordly names
And gallant deeds and shining fames
Could be no less unknown to him
182
At last he stammered, musing much,
“I reckon those were ancient Dutch;
An' though I'm but a middlin' schollard
In history, I think I know,
For sartin sure, the graveyard swaller'd
Their strength an' glory long ago;
For Holland's sign come down a story
When Britain took to keepin' tavern,
An' Spain has got as weak an' hoary
As giant Pope in Bunyan's cavern.
So, on the whole an' ‘barrin’ errors,
I ruther guess those famous coots
Charged bagnets on the king of terrors
An' died, like sojers, in their boots.”
| The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | |