The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Under the bright room where they lay,
Deep in the stonework gaunt and grey,
I will build a dungeon grim.
She and her lover (I stabbed him dead,
And his blood-drops splashed her breast with red)
Shall rest in the darkness dim.
Under the bright room where they lay
They shall wait in the dark till the Judgment Day
Flames out upon her and him.

(How it goes ring, ringing, through my brain,
That foolish light old swift refrain
She was singing when we met in Spain;
“I love you, I love you—” again and again!)

My hands may tremble. I will not shrink.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under the bright room where they slept
Till up from the sea the gold sun leapt,
In sunless darkness deep
They shall rest till the solemn trump of doom
Shakes the walls of their wedding-room
And summons their souls from sleep.
White by his couch her form shall stand,
And her lips shall struggle to kiss his hand
And her eyes shall strive to weep.

(How I remember the tinkling stream
And the night that passed in a maddening dream—
The room where we slept, and the pale moonbeam,
And her eyes with their wonderful passionate gleam!)

Death's cup is ready. Her lips shall drink.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under the bright room where they lay
I will build a dungeon, and no day
Shall ever enter there.
I will take her, stately and lovely—so
That the heart of a god might madden and glow
With love of her thick black hair:

Then, brick by brick and stone by stone,
I will build her up in the vault, alone
With the man her eyes found fair.

(Darling—“the gnat has stung the white
Of your beautiful arm,” so I said in the night:
“Lay your arm in the moon's soft light;
Let me suck the poison out—my right!”)

I will not pause to remember or think.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under the bright room where they lay,
The room that looks on the sunny bay,
I have built a sunless tomb.
There my darling and he shall be wed.
I stabbed him—curse him! He lies there dead,
Stark on a couch in the gloom.
Down in the dark she shall live with him:
They shall kiss in the dark, till their eyes grow dim
And their lustful limbs consume.

(I loved her so. Oh, my raven hair
And the beautiful throat I found so fair!

I loved you—a girl with shoulders bare—
And I love you still. That means despair.)

I work. I sever the past's last link.
Clink goes the trowel. Clink! clink! clink!
Clink! clink! clink!

Under their bright room, far below,
Where the grass spreads rank and the mosses grow,
She shall stand and feast her eyes
On the corpse of the man she loved so well,
Till she starves to a corpse in the vault's dim hell
And, grasping her dead man, dies.
Outside, the butterflies white will race,
And the girls will pass to the market-place,
Singing under the sunny skies.
Step into the tomb, my lady fair.
Your death-cold lover is waiting there
With a brave true kiss for the thick black hair,
Such a brave true kiss for the thick black hair.
(Clink! clink! clink!)

II. “YO HO! YO HO!”

Over the blue waves leaping
The eager vessel flies;
It laughs at the green isles sleeping,
And it smiles at the sunny skies.
But the pilot's song is of sadness,
For he knows in the midnight deep
That the white waves rise to madness,
And he knows where the drowned men sleep.
But “Yo ho! Yo ho!” sing the men below;
“We care not a fig what wind may blow,
Yo ho! Yo ho!”

The ships that are passing hail them,
Loud echoes the sailor's shout;
Did ever their bold hearts fail them,
While the flagons of wine held out?

The pilot dreams of the haven,
And the woman he loves ashore:
Black hair like the wing of the raven—
Will he never see it more?
But “Yo ho! Yo ho!” sing the men below;
“Give us wine, and the ship to the bottom may go!
Yo ho! Yo ho!”

The pilot thinks of his darling
By her grey-haired mother's side—
(“Yelp!” go the hoarse waves snarling)
His beauty, his heart's own pride.
He thinks of the Church so quiet
On the side of the old green hill
(The wind is beginning to riot,
And the ropes are never still).
“Yo ho! Yo ho!” sing the men below;
“Shall the wind's chirp frighten us. No, no, no.
Yo ho! Yo ho!”

The evening saddens and darkens,
And the roaring surges swell;
The pilot sighs, as he hearkens
To the sound he knows so well.

Yet in spite of the sea-waves' warning
There is hope in his song to-night,
For England's cliffs in the morning
May flash on the seamen's sight.
But “Yo ho! Yo ho!” sing the men below;
“When the bottle goes round, the fun will grow,
Yo ho! Yo ho!”

But the ship from her course is swerving;
On the sharp reefs howl the waves
With ponderous white crests curving,
And the green gulfs yawn like graves.
And the song of the pilot changes,
As he stands at the helm—still there—
While his eye o'er the black night ranges,
To the wild song of despair.
Still “Yo ho! Yo ho!” sang the men below,
For death can be drowned in the bowl, we know,
“Yo ho! Yo ho!”

III. THE BLACK FLAG

Would you know the life that is fair and free?
Climb the downs, and gaze o'er the open sea.
See you the schooner at anchor there,
And the black flag, strange in the sunny air?
That is the bark of the pirate king,
And this is the song the pirates sing:
“We scuttle a galleon every day,
And the blue sea washes the stains away;
Can drowned men rise from sleep?”

Yesterday morning, rank on rank
They stood, while a doomed man walked the plank.
Soon only a bubble marked the spot,
But the light-heart pirates heeded not;
They danced on deck, and they laughed and sang
Till the ship's old timbers echoed and rang—

“Though the deck run red with the signs of the fray,
The sea can wash all stains away,
And we are the lords of the deep.

“Men think they love, on the dull stale shore;
We love, where the billows plunge and roar.
We take our pick of the captured girls;
Some like black tresses, some love gold curls;
We take our pick, and the rest we drown,
And they tumble after their sweethearts down
To the blue clear depths of the Indian bay,
And the tide will carry them right away
While their sisters wail and weep.

“Then under the trees, if ever we land,
Close to the waves on the golden sand,
We spread for ourselves a royal feast;
The wine shall flow for a night at least!
And there by the firelight on the shore
Our jolly old chorus loud we roar,
‘Will the waves betray us? Nay, nay, nay!
For the sea can wash all stains away,
Though the prisoners die in a heap.’

“One of the captured girls we crown—
The one with the eyes of lovely brown.
She sorrowed at first. She is reconciled,
And there isn't a pirate heart more wild.
Bride she shall be of the pirate king,
And her bright red laughing lips shall sing
‘When the sea-king speaks the waves obey,
And they wash the blood of his foes away,
And their bones the green depths keep.’”

That is the life that is fair and free—
So the pirates think—on the fair blue sea.
But if ever a king's ship spies them out
They must sharpen their cutlas-blades, no doubt,
For the king's stout sailors will harry them then
And their one last chance is to die like men,
Die in a frenzy, fierce and gay,
And the sea will wash their blood away,
And the waves will over them leap.

IV. THE FAIRY BELLS

Of old at night, when the woods were bright
And the air was warm with the warmth of June,
The bells of the fairies tinkled light
And their eyes flashed under the summer moon.
Yes, then you might hear, when the moon shone clear
Through the woods, or over the purple fells,
Sometimes distant, and sometimes near,
The sound of the beautiful fairy bells,
The beautiful fairy bells.

Alas! men's hearts waxed selfish and hard,
And they only cared for gold and gain;
The ears of the fairies grew quite jarred
By the puff, puff, puff of the rattling train.

To deep dark forests the fairies fled,
And we all are sorry—though no one tells—
That the innocent sweet old days are dead
When we all could hear the fairy bells,
The beautiful fairy bells.

But still when lovers are fond and true,
If they listen within the woods of June
When the stars shine through deep skies of blue
And the white clouds kiss the shy-faced moon,
They may hear, they may hear, soft, sweet and clear,
A sound that rises, a sound that swells,
Sometimes distant and sometimes near—
The sound of the beautiful fairy bells,
The beautiful fairy bells.