The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ballads, by Robert Louis Stevenson (#16 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson) Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Ballads Author: Robert Louis Stevenson Release Date: January, 1996 [EBook #413] [This file was first posted on December 15, 1995] [Most recently updated: August 18, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII
Transcribed from the 1895 Chatto & Windus edition
by David Price, email [email protected]
BALLADS BY ROBERT
LOUIS STEVENSON
Contents:
The Song of
Rahéro
Dedication
The
Slaying of Támatéa
The Venging of
Támatéa
Rahéro
Notes
The
Feast of Famine
The Priest’s
Vigil
The
Lovers
The
Feast
The
Raid
Notes
Ticonderoga
The Saying of the Name
The Seeking of the Name
The Place of the Name
Notes
Heather
Ale
Heather
Ale
Note
Christmas
At Sea
THE SONG OF RAHÉRO
A LEGEND OF
TAHITI
TO ORI A ORI
Ori, my brother in the island
mode,
In every tongue and meaning much my friend,
This story of your
country and your clan,
In your loved house, your too much honoured
guest,
I made in English. Take it, being done;
And let me sign it
with the name you gave.
TERIITERA.
I. THE SLAYING OF
TÁMATÉA
It fell in the days of old, as the men of Taiárapu tell,
A
youth went forth to the fishing, and fortune favoured him well.
Támatéa his
name: gullible, simple, and kind,
Comely of countenance, nimble of body,
empty of mind,
His mother ruled him and loved him beyond the wont of a
wife,
Serving the lad for eyes and living herself in his life.
Alone from
the sea and the fishing came Támatéa the fair,
Urging his boat to the beach,
and the mother awaited him there,
- “Long may you live!” said she.
“Your fishing has sped to a wish.
And now let us choose for the king the
fairest of all your fish.
For fear inhabits the palace and grudging grows in
the land,
Marked is the sluggardly foot and marked the niggardly hand,
The
hours and the miles are counted, the tributes numbered and weighed,
And woe
to him that comes short, and woe to him that delayed!”
So spoke on the
beach the mother, and counselled the wiser thing.
For Rahéro stirred in the
country and secretly mined the king.
Nor were the signals wanting of how the
leaven wrought,
In the cords of obedience loosed and the tributes grudgingly
brought.
And when last to the temple of Oro the boat with the victim
sped,
And the priest uncovered the basket and looked on the face of the
dead,
Trembling fell upon all at sight of an ominous thing,
For there was
the aito {1a}
dead, and he of the house of the king.
So spake on the beach the mother,
matter worthy of note,
And wattled a basket well, and chose a fish from the
boat;
And Támatéa the pliable shouldered the basket and went,
And
travelled, and sang as he travelled, a lad that was well content.
Still the
way of his going was round by the roaring coast,
Where the ring of the reef
is broke and the trades run riot the most.
On his left, with smoke as of
battle, the billows battered the land;
Unscalable, turreted mountains rose on
the inner hand.
And cape, and village, and river, and vale, and mountain
above,
Each had a name in the land for men to remember and love;
And never
the name of a place, but lo! a song in its praise:
Ancient and unforgotten,
songs of the earlier days,
That the elders taught to the young, and at night,
in the full of the moon,
Garlanded boys and maidens sang together in
tune.
Támatéa the placable went with a lingering foot;
He sang as loud as
a bird, he whistled hoarse as a flute;
He broiled in the sun, he breathed in
the grateful shadow of trees,
In the icy stream of the rivers he waded over
the knees;
And still in his empty mind crowded, a thousand-fold,
The deeds
of the strong and the songs of the cunning heroes of old.
And now was he
come to a place Taiárapu honoured the most,
Where a silent valley of woods
debouched on the noisy coast,
Spewing a level river. There was a haunt
of Pai. {1b}
There,
in his potent youth, when his parents drove him to die,
Honoura lived like a
beast, lacking the lamp and the fire,
Washed by the rains of the trade and
clotting his hair in the mire;
And there, so mighty his hands, he bent the
tree to his foot -
So keen the spur of his hunger, he plucked it naked of
fruit.
There, as she pondered the clouds for the shadow of coming
ills,
Ahupu, the woman of song, walked on high on the hills.
Of these
was Rahéro sprung, a man of a godly race;
And inherited cunning of spirit and
beauty of body and face.
Of yore in his youth, as an aito, Rahéro wandered
the land,
Delighting maids with his tongue, smiting men with his
hand.
Famous he was in his youth; but before the midst of his life
Paused,
and fashioned a song of farewell to glory and strife.
House of
mine (it went), house upon the sea,
Belov’d of all my fathers, more belov’d
by me!
Vale of the strong Honoura, deep ravine of Pai,
Again in your woody
summits I hear the trade-wind cry.
House of mine, in your walls,
strong sounds the sea,
Of all sounds on earth, dearest sound to me.
I have
heard the applause of men, I have heard it arise and die:
Sweeter now in my
house I hear the trade-wind cry.
These were the words of his
singing, other the thought of his heart;
For secret desire of glory vexed
him, dwelling apart.
Lazy and crafty he was, and loved to lie in the
sun,
And loved the cackle of talk and the true word uttered in fun;
Lazy
he was, his roof was ragged, his table was lean,
And the fish swam safe in
his sea, and he gathered the near and the green.
He sat in his house and
laughed, but he loathed the king of the land,
And he uttered the grudging
word under the covering hand.
Treason spread from his door; and he looked for
a day to come,
A day of the crowding people, a day of the summoning
drum,
When the vote should be taken, the king be driven forth in
disgrace,
And Rahéro, the laughing and lazy, sit and rule in his
place,
Here Támatéa came, and beheld the house on the brook;
And Rahéro
was there by the way and covered an oven to cook. {1c}
Naked
he was to the loins, but the tattoo covered the lack,
And the sun and the
shadow of palms dappled his muscular back.
Swiftly he lifted his head at the
fall of the coming feet,
And the water sprang in his mouth with a sudden
desire of meat;
For he marked the basket carried, covered from flies and the
sun; {1d}
And
Rahéro buried his fire, but the meat in his house was done.
Forth he
stepped; and took, and delayed the boy, by the hand;
And vaunted the joys of
meat and the ancient ways of the land:
- “Our sires of old in Taiárapu, they
that created the race,
Ate ever with eager hand, nor regarded season or
place,
Ate in the boat at the oar, on the way afoot; and at night
Arose in
the midst of dreams to rummage the house for a bite.
It is good for the youth
in his turn to follow the way of the sire;
And behold how fitting the time!
for here do I cover my fire.”
- “I see the fire for the cooking but never the
meat to cook,”
Said Támatéa. - “Tut!” said Rahéro. “Here in the
brook
And there in the tumbling sea, the fishes are thick as flies,
Hungry
like healthy men, and like pigs for savour and size:
Crayfish crowding the
river, sea-fish thronging the sea.”
- “Well it may be,” says the other, “and
yet be nothing to me.
Fain would I eat, but alas! I have needful matter
in hand,
Since I carry my tribute of fish to the jealous king of the
land.”
Now at the word a light sprang in Rahéro’s eyes.
“I will gain
me a dinner,” thought he, “and lend the king a surprise.”
And he took the lad
by the arm, as they stood by the side of the track,
And smiled, and rallied,
and flattered, and pushed him forward and back.
It was “You that sing like a
bird, I never have heard you sing,”
And “The lads when I was a lad were none
so feared of a king.
And of what account is an hour, when the heart is empty
of guile?
But come, and sit in the house and laugh with the women
awhile;
And I will but drop my hook, and behold! the dinner made.”
So
Támatéa the pliable hung up his fish in the shade
On a tree by the side of
the way; and Rahéro carried him in,
Smiling as smiles the fowler when
flutters the bird to the gin,
And chose him a shining hook, {1e}
and viewed it with sedulous eye,
And breathed and burnished it well on the
brawn of his naked thigh,
And set a mat for the gull, and bade him be merry
and bide,
Like a man concerned for his guest, and the fishing, and nothing
beside.
Now when Rahéro was forth, he paused and hearkened, and
heard
The gull jest in the house and the women laugh at his word;
And
stealthily crossed to the side of the way, to the shady place
Where the
basket hung on a mango; and craft transfigured his face.
Deftly he opened the
basket, and took of the fat of the fish,
The cut of kings and chieftains,
enough for a goodly dish.
This he wrapped in a leaf, set on the fire to
cook
And buried; and next the marred remains of the tribute he took,
And
doubled and packed them well, and covered the basket close
- “There is a
buffet, my king,” quoth he, “and a nauseous dose!” -
And hung the basket
again in the shade, in a cloud of flies
- “And there is a sauce to your
dinner, king of the crafty eyes!”
Soon as the oven was open, the fish
smelt excellent good.
In the shade, by the house of Rahéro, down they sat to
their food,
And cleared the leaves {1f} in
silence, or uttered a jest and laughed,
And raising the cocoanut bowls,
buried their faces and quaffed.
But chiefly in silence they ate; and soon as
the meal was done,
Rahéro feigned to remember and measured the hour by the
sun,
And “Támatéa,” quoth he, “it is time to be jogging, my lad.”
So
Támatéa arose, doing ever the thing he was bade,
And carelessly shouldered
the basket, and kindly saluted his host;
And again the way of his going was
round by the roaring coast.
Long he went; and at length was aware of a
pleasant green,
And the stems and shadows of palms, and roofs of lodges
between
There sate, in the door of his palace, the king on a kingly
seat,
And aitos stood armed around, and the yottowas {1g}
sat at his feet.
But fear was a worm in his heart: fear darted his
eyes;
And he probed men’s faces for treasons and pondered their speech for
lies.
To him came Támatéa, the basket slung in his hand,
And paid him the
due obeisance standing as vassals stand.
In silence hearkened the king, and
closed the eyes in his face,
Harbouring odious thoughts and the baseless
fears of the base;
In silence accepted the gift and sent the giver
away.
So Támatéa departed, turning his back on the day.
And lo! as the
king sat brooding, a rumour rose in the crowd;
The yottowas nudged and
whispered, the commons murmured aloud;
Tittering fell upon all at sight of
the impudent thing,
At the sight of a gift unroyal flung in the face of a
king.
And the face of the king turned white and red with anger and
shame
In their midst; and the heart in his body was water and then was
flame;
Till of a sudden, turning, he gripped an aito hard,
A youth that
stood with his ómare, {1h}
one of the daily guard,
And spat in his ear a command, and pointed and
uttered a name,
And hid in the shade of the house his impotent anger and
shame.
Now Támatéa the fool was far on the homeward way,
The rising
night in his face, behind him the dying day.
Rahéro saw him go by, and the
heart of Rahéro was glad,
Devising shame to the king and nowise harm to the
lad;
And all that dwelt by the way saw and saluted him well,
For he had
the face of a friend and the news of the town to tell;
And pleased with the
notice of folk, and pleased that his journey was done,
Támatéa drew homeward,
turning his back to the sun.
And now was the hour of the bath in
Taiárapu: far and near
The lovely laughter of bathers rose and delighted his
ear.
Night massed in the valleys; the sun on the mountain coast
Struck,
end-long; and above the clouds embattled their host,
And glowed and gloomed
on the heights; and the heads of the palms were gems,
And far to the rising
eve extended the shade of their stems;
And the shadow of Támatéa hovered
already at home.
And sudden the sound of one coming and running light as
the foam
Struck on his ear; and he turned, and lo! a man on his
track,
Girded and armed with an ómare, following hard at his back.
At a
bound the man was upon him; - and, or ever a word was said,
The loaded end of
the ómare fell and laid him dead.
II. THE VENGING OF
TÁMATÉA
Thus was Rahéro’s treason; thus and no further it sped
The
king sat safe in his place and a kindly fool was dead.
But the mother of
Támatéa arose with death in her eyes.
All night long, and the next, Taiárapu
rang with her cries.
As when a babe in the wood turns with a chill of
doubt
And perceives nor home, nor friends, for the trees have closed her
about,
The mountain rings and her breast is torn with the voice of
despair:
So the lion-like woman idly wearied the air
For awhile, and
pierced men’s hearing in vain, and wounded their hearts.
But as when the
weather changes at sea, in dangerous parts,
And sudden the hurricane wrack
unrolls up the front of the sky,
At once the ship lies idle, the sails hang
silent on high,
The breath of the wind that blew is blown out like the flame
of a lamp,
And the silent armies of death draw near with inaudible
tramp:
So sudden, the voice of her weeping ceased; in silence she rose
And
passed from the house of her sorrow, a woman clothed with repose,
Carrying
death in her breast and sharpening death with her hand.
Hither she went
and thither in all the coasts of the land.
They tell that she feared not to
slumber alone, in the dead of night,
In accursed places; beheld, unblenched,
the ribbon of light {1i}
Spin
from temple to temple; guided the perilous skiff,
Abhorred not the paths of
the mountain and trod the verge of the cliff;
From end to end of the island,
thought not the distance long,
But forth from king to king carried the tale
of her wrong.
To king after king, as they sat in the palace door, she
came,
Claiming kinship, declaiming verses, naming her name
And the names
of all of her fathers; and still, with a heart on the rack,
Jested to capture
a hearing and laughed when they jested back:
So would deceive them awhile,
and change and return in a breath,
And on all the men of Vaiau imprecate
instant death;
And tempt her kings - for Vaiau was a rich and prosperous
land,
And flatter - for who would attempt it but warriors mighty of
hand?
And change in a breath again and rise in a strain of song,
Invoking
the beaten drums, beholding the fall of the strong,
Calling the fowls of the
air to come and feast on the dead.
And they held the chin in silence, and
heard her, and shook the head;
For they knew the men of Taiárapu famous in
battle and feast,
Marvellous eaters and smiters: the men of Vaiau not
least.
To the land of the Námunu-úra, {1j} to
Paea, at length she came,
To men who were foes to the Tevas and hated their
race and name.
There was she well received, and spoke with Hiopa the king. {1k}
And
Hiopa listened, and weighed, and wisely considered the thing.
“Here in the
back of the isle we dwell in a sheltered place,”
Quoth he to the woman, “in
quiet, a weak and peaceable race.
But far in the teeth of the wind lofty
Taiárapu lies;
Strong blows the wind of the trade on its seaward face, and
cries
Aloud in the top of arduous mountains, and utters its song
In green
continuous forests. Strong is the wind, and strong
And fruitful and
hardy the race, famous in battle and feast,
Marvellous eaters and smiters:
the men of Vaiau not least.
Now hearken to me, my daughter, and hear a word
of the wise:
How a strength goes linked with a weakness, two by two, like the
eyes.
They can wield the ómare well and cast the javelin far;
Yet are they
greedy and weak as the swine and the children are.
Plant we, then, here at
Paea, a garden of excellent fruits;
Plant we bananas and kava and taro, the
king of roots;
Let the pigs in Paea be tapu {1l}
and no man fish for a year;
And of all the meat in Tahiti gather we threefold
here.
So shall the fame of our plenty fill the island, and so,
At last, on
the tongue of rumour, go where we wish it to go.
Then shall the pigs of
Taiárapu raise their snouts in the air;
But we sit quiet and wait, as the
fowler sits by the snare,
And tranquilly fold our hands, till the pigs come
nosing the food:
But meanwhile build us a house of Trotéa, the stubborn
wood,
Bind it with incombustible thongs, set a roof to the room,
Too
strong for the hands of a man to dissever or fire to consume;
And there, when
the pigs come trotting, there shall the feast be spread,
There shall the eye
of the morn enlighten the feasters dead.
So be it done; for I have a heart
that pities your state,
And Nateva and Námunu-úra are fire and water for
hate.”
All was done as he said, and the gardens prospered; and now
The
fame of their plenty went out, and word of it came to Vaiau.
For the men of
Námunu-úra sailed, to the windward far,
Lay in the offing by south where the
towns of the Tevas are,
And cast overboard of their plenty; and lo! at the
Tevas feet
The surf on all of the beaches tumbled treasures of meat.
In
the salt of the sea, a harvest tossed with the refluent foam;
And the
children gleaned it in playing, and ate and carried it home;
And the elders
stared and debated, and wondered and passed the jest,
But whenever a guest
came by eagerly questioned the guest;
And little by little, from one to
another, the word went round:
“In all the borders of Paea the victual rots on
the ground,
And swine are plenty as rats. And now, when they fare to
the sea,
The men of the Námunu-úra glean from under the tree
And load the
canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat;
And all day long on
the sea the jaws are crushing the meat,
The steersman eats at the helm, the
rowers munch at the oar,
And at length, when their bellies are full,
overboard with the store!”
Now was the word made true, and soon as the bait
was bare,
All the pigs of Taiárapu raised their snouts in the air.
Songs
were recited, and kinship was counted, and tales were told
How war had
severed of late but peace had cemented of old
The clans of the island.
“To war,” said they, “now set we an end,
And hie to the Námunu-úra even as a
friend to a friend.”
So judged, and a day was named; and soon as the
morning broke,
Canoes were thrust in the sea and the houses emptied of
folk.
Strong blew the wind of the south, the wind that gathers the
clan;
Along all the line of the reef the clamorous surges ran;
And the
clouds were piled on the top of the island mountain-high,
A mountain throned
on a mountain. The fleet of canoes swept by
In the midst, on the green
lagoon, with a crew released from care,
Sailing an even water, breathing a
summer air,
Cheered by a cloudless sun; and ever to left and
right,
Bursting surge on the reef, drenching storms on the height.
So the
folk of Vaiau sailed and were glad all day,
Coasting the palm-tree cape and
crossing the populous bay
By all the towns of the Tevas; and still as they
bowled along,
Boat would answer to boat with jest and laughter and
song,
And the people of all the towns trooped to the sides of the sea
And
gazed from under the hand or sprang aloft on the tree,
Hailing and
cheering. Time failed them for more to do;
The holiday village careened
to the wind, and was gone from view
Swift as a passing bird; and ever as
onward it bore,
Like the cry of the passing bird, bequeathed its song to the
shore -
Desirable laughter of maids and the cry of delight of the
child.
And the gazer, left behind, stared at the wake and smiled.
By all
the towns of the Tevas they went, and Pápara last,
The home of the chief, the
place of muster in war; and passed
The march of the lands of the clan, to the
lands of an alien folk.
And there, from the dusk of the shoreside palms, a
column of smoke
Mounted and wavered and died in the gold of the setting
sun,
“Paea!” they cried. “It is Paea.” And so was the voyage
done.
In the early fall of the night, Hiopa came to the shore,
And
beheld and counted the comers, and lo, they were forty score:
The pelting
feet of the babes that ran already and played,
The clean-lipped smile of the
boy, the slender breasts of the maid,
And mighty limbs of women, stalwart
mothers of men.
The sires stood forth unabashed; but a little back from his
ken
Clustered the scarcely nubile, the lads and maids, in a ring,
Fain of
each other, afraid of themselves, aware of the king
And aping behaviour, but
clinging together with hands and eyes,
With looks that were kind like kisses,
and laughter tender as sighs.
There, too, the grandsire stood, raising his
silver crest,
And the impotent hands of a suckling groped in his barren
breast.
The childhood of love, the pair well married, the innocent
brood,
The tale of the generations repeated and ever renewed -
Hiopa
beheld them together, all the ages of man,
And a moment shook in his
purpose.
But these were the foes of his clan,
And he trod upon pity,
and came, and civilly greeted the king,
And gravely entreated Rahéro; and for
all that could fight or sing,
And claimed a name in the land, had fitting
phrases of praise;
But with all who were well-descended he spoke of the
ancient days.
And “‘Tis true,” said he, “that in Paea the victual rots on the
ground;
But, friends, your number is many; and pigs must be hunted and
found,
And the lads troop to the mountains to bring the féis down,
And
around the bowls of the kava cluster the maids of the town.
So, for to-night,
sleep here; but king, common, and priest
To-morrow, in order due, shall sit
with me in the feast.”
Sleepless the live-long night, Hiopa’s followers
toiled.
The pigs screamed and were slaughtered; the spars of the guest-house
oiled,
The leaves spread on the floor. In many a mountain glen
The
moon drew shadows of trees on the naked bodies of men
Plucking and bearing
fruits; and in all the bounds of the town
Red glowed the cocoanut fires, and
were buried and trodden down.
Thus did seven of the yottowas toil with their
tale of the clan,
But the eighth wrought with his lads, hid from the sight of
man.
In the deeps of the woods they laboured, piling the fuel high
In
fagots, the load of a man, fuel seasoned and dry,
Thirsty to seize upon fire
and apt to blurt into flame.
And now was the day of the feast. The
forests, as morning came,
Tossed in the wind, and the peaks quaked in the
blaze of the day
And the cocoanuts showered on the ground, rebounding and
rolling away:
A glorious morn for a feast, a famous wind for a fire.
To
the hall of feasting Hiopa led them, mother and sire
And maid and babe in a
tale, the whole of the holiday throng.
Smiling they came, garlanded green,
not dreaming of wrong;
And for every three, a pig, tenderly cooked in the
ground,
Waited, and féi, the staff of life, heaped in a mound
For each
where he sat; - for each, bananas roasted and raw
Piled with a bountiful
hand, as for horses hay and straw
Are stacked in a stable; and fish, the food
of desire, {1m}
And
plentiful vessels of sauce, and breadfruit gilt in the fire; -
And kava was
common as water. Feasts have there been ere now,
And many, but never a
feast like that of the folk of Vaiau.
All day long they ate with the
resolute greed of brutes,
And turned from the pigs to the fish, and again
from the fish to the fruits,
And emptied the vessels of sauce, and drank of
the kava deep;
Till the young lay stupid as stones, and the strongest nodded
to sleep.
Sleep that was mighty as death and blind as a moonless
night
Tethered them hand and foot; and their souls were drowned, and the
light
Was cloaked from their eyes. Senseless together, the old and the
young,
The fighter deadly to smite and the prater cunning of tongue,
The
woman wedded and fruitful, inured to the pangs of birth,
And the maid that
knew not of kisses, blindly sprawled on the earth.
From the hall Hiopa the
king and his chiefs came stealthily forth.
Already the sun hung low and
enlightened the peaks of the north;
But the wind was stubborn to die and blew
as it blows at morn,
Showering the nuts in the dusk, and e’en as a banner is
torn,
High on the peaks of the island, shattered the mountain cloud.
And
now at once, at a signal, a silent, emulous crowd
Set hands to the work of
death, hurrying to and fro,
Like ants, to furnish the fagots, building them
broad and low,
And piling them high and higher around the walls of the
hall.
Silence persisted within, for sleep lay heavy on all;
But the mother
of Támatéa stood at Hiopa’s side,
And shook for terror and joy like a girl
that is a bride.
Night fell on the toilers, and first Hiopa the wise
Made
the round of the house, visiting all with his eyes;
And all was piled to the
eaves, and fuel blockaded the door;
And within, in the house beleaguered,
slumbered the forty score.
Then was an aito dispatched and came with fire in
his hand,
And Hiopa took it. - “Within,” said he, “is the life of a
land;
And behold! I breathe on the coal, I breathe on the dales of the
east,
And silence falls on forest and shore; the voice of the feast
Is
quenched, and the smoke of cooking; the rooftree decays and falls
On the
empty lodge, and the winds subvert deserted walls.”
Therewithal, to the
fuel, he laid the glowing coal;
And the redness ran in the mass and burrowed
within like a mole,
And copious smoke was conceived. But, as when a dam
is to burst,
The water lips it and crosses in silver trickles at
first,
And then, of a sudden, whelms and bears it away forthright:
So now,
in a moment, the flame sprang and towered in the night,
And wrestled and
roared in the wind, and high over house and tree,
Stood, like a streaming
torch, enlightening land and sea.
But the mother of Támatéa threw her
arms abroad,
“Pyre of my son,” she shouted, ‘debited vengeance of
God,
Late, late, I behold you, yet I behold you at last,
And glory,
beholding! For now are the days of my agony past,
The lust that
famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire,
And they that encompassed my
son shrivel alive in the fire.
Tenfold precious the vengeance that comes
after lingering years!
Ye quenched the voice of my singer? - hark, in your
dying ears,
The song of the conflagration! Ye left me a widow
alone?
- Behold, the whole of your race consumes, sinew and bone
And
torturing flesh together: man, mother, and maid
Heaped in a common shambles;
and already, borne by the trade,
The smoke of your dissolution darkens the
stars of night.”
Thus she spoke, and her stature grew in the people’s
sight.
III. RAHÉRO
Rahéro was there in the hall asleep:
beside him his wife,
Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in
life;
And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse;
And a
boy, a climber of trees: all the hopes of his house.
Unwary, with open hands,
he slept in the midst of his folk,
And dreamed that he heard a voice crying
without, and awoke,
Leaping blindly afoot like one from a dream that he
fears.
A hellish glow and clouds were about him; - it roared in his
ears
Like the sound of the cataract fall that plunges sudden and
steep;
And Rahéro swayed as he stood, and his reason was still asleep.
Now
the flame struck hard on the house, wind-wielded, a fracturing blow,
And the
end of the roof was burst and fell on the sleepers below;
And the lofty hall,
and the feast, and the prostrate bodies of folk,
Shone red in his eyes a
moment, and then were swallowed of smoke.
In the mind of Rahéro clearness
came; and he opened his throat;
And as when a squall comes sudden, the
straining sail of a boat
Thunders aloud and bursts, so thundered the voice of
the man.
- “The wind and the rain!” he shouted, the mustering word of the
clan, {1n}
And
“up!” and “to arms men of Vaiau!” But silence replied,
Or only the
voice of the gusts of the fire, and nothing beside.
Rahéro stooped and
groped. He handled his womankind,
But the fumes of the fire and the
kava had quenched the life of their mind,
And they lay like pillars prone;
and his hand encountered the boy,
And there sprang in the gloom of his soul a
sudden lightning of joy.
“Him can I save!” he thought, “if I were speedy
enough.”
And he loosened the cloth from his loins, and swaddled the child in
the stuff;
And about the strength of his neck he knotted the burden
well.
There where the roof had fallen, it roared like the mouth of
hell.
Thither Rahéro went, stumbling on senseless folk,
And grappled a
post of the house, and began to climb in the smoke:
The last alive of Vaiau;
and the son borne by the sire.
The post glowed in the grain with ulcers of
eating fire,
And the fire bit to the blood and mangled his hands and
thighs;
And the fumes sang in his head like wine and stung in his
eyes;
And still he climbed, and came to the top, the place of proof,
And
thrust a hand through the flame, and clambered alive on the roof.
But even as
he did so, the wind, in a garment of flames and pain,
Wrapped him from head
to heel; and the waistcloth parted in twain;
And the living fruit of his
loins dropped in the fire below.
About the blazing feast-house clustered
the eyes of the foe,
Watching, hand upon weapon, lest ever a soul should
flee,
Shading the brow from the glare, straining the neck to see
Only, to
leeward, the flames in the wind swept far and wide,
And the forest sputtered
on fire; and there might no man abide.
Thither Rahéro crept, and dropped from
the burning eaves,
And crouching low to the ground, in a treble covert of
leaves
And fire and volleying smoke, ran for the life of his soul
Unseen;
and behind him under a furnace of ardent coal,
Cairned with a wonder of
flame, and blotting the night with smoke,
Blazed and were smelted together
the bones of all his folk.
He fled unguided at first; but hearing the
breakers roar,
Thitherward shaped his way, and came at length to the
shore.
Sound-limbed he was: dry-eyed; but smarted in every part;
And the
mighty cage of his ribs heaved on his straining heart
With sorrow and
rage. And “Fools!” he cried, “fools of Vaiau,
Heads of swine - gluttons
- Alas! and where are they now?
Those that I played with, those that nursed
me, those that I nursed?
God, and I outliving them! I, the least and
the worst -
I, that thought myself crafty, snared by this herd of
swine,
In the tortures of hell and desolate, stripped of all that was
mine:
All! - my friends and my fathers - the silver heads of yore
That
trooped to the council, the children that ran to the open door
Crying with
innocent voices and clasping a father’s knees!
And mine, my wife - my
daughter - my sturdy climber of trees
Ah, never to climb again!”
Thus
in the dusk of the night,
(For clouds rolled in the sky and the moon was
swallowed from sight,)
Pacing and gnawing his fists, Rahéro raged by the
shore.
Vengeance: that must be his. But much was to do before;
And
first a single life to be snatched from a deadly place,
A life, the root of
revenge, surviving plant of the race:
And next the race to be raised anew,
and the lands of the clan
Repeopled. So Rahéro designed, a prudent
man
Even in wrath, and turned for the means of revenge and escape:
A boat
to be seized by stealth, a wife to be taken by rape.
Still was the dark
lagoon; beyond on the coral wall,
He saw the breakers shine, he heard them
bellow and fall.
Alone, on the top of the reef, a man with a flaming
brand
Walked, gazing and pausing, a fish-spear poised in his hand.
The
foam boiled to his calf when the mightier breakers came,
And the torch shed
in the wind scattering tufts of flame.
Afar on the dark lagoon a canoe lay
idly at wait:
A figure dimly guiding it: surely the fisherman’s
mate.
Rahéro saw and he smiled. He straightened his mighty
thews:
Naked, with never a weapon, and covered with scorch and bruise,
He
straightened his arms, he filled the void of his body with breath,
And,
strong as the wind in his manhood, doomed the fisher to death.
Silent he
entered the water, and silently swam, and came
There where the fisher walked,
holding on high the flame.
Loud on the pier of the reef volleyed the breach
of the sea;
And hard at the back of the man, Rahéro crept to his knee
On
the coral, and suddenly sprang and seized him, the elder hand
Clutching the
joint of his throat, the other snatching the brand
Ere it had time to fall,
and holding it steady and high.
Strong was the fisher, brave, and swift of
mind and of eye -
Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahéro resisted the
strain,
And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in
twain,
And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled a lump at his
feet.
One moment: and there, on the reef, where the breakers whitened and
beat,
Rahéro was standing alone, glowing and scorched and bare,
A victor
unknown of any, raising the torch in the air.
But once he drank of his
breath, and instantly set him to fish
Like a man intent upon supper at home
and a savoury dish.
For what should the woman have seen? A man with a
torch - and then
A moment’s blur of the eyes - and a man with a torch
again.
And the torch had scarcely been shaken. “Ah, surely,” Rahéro
said,
“She will deem it a trick of the eyes, a fancy born in the head;
But
time must be given the fool to nourish a fool’s belief.”
So for a while, a
sedulous fisher, he walked the reef,
Pausing at times and gazing, striking at
times with the spear:
- Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew
near,
Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the
sea.
Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she
Lightly
addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit;
For now the torch was
extinguished the night was black as the pit
Rahéro set him to row, never a
word he spoke,
And the boat sang in the water urged by his vigorous
stroke.
- “What ails you?” the woman asked, “and why did you drop the
brand?
We have only to kindle another as soon as we come to land.”
Never a
word Rahéro replied, but urged the canoe.
And a chill fell on the woman. -
“Atta! speak! is it you?
Speak! Why are you silent? Why do you
bend aside?
Wherefore steer to the seaward?” thus she panted and
cried.
Never a word from the oarsman, toiling there in the dark;
But right
for a gate of the reef he silently headed the bark,
And wielding the single
paddle with passionate sweep on sweep,
Drove her, the little fitted, forth on
the open deep.
And fear, there where she sat, froze the woman to
stone:
Not fear of the crazy boat and the weltering deep alone;
But a
keener fear of the night, the dark, and the ghostly hour,
And the thing that
drove the canoe with more than a mortal’s power
And more than a mortal’s
boldness. For much she knew of the dead
That haunt and fish upon reefs,
toiling, like men, for bread,
And traffic with human fishers, or slay them
and take their ware,
Till the hour when the star of the dead {1o}
goes down, and the morning air
Blows, and the cocks are singing on
shore. And surely she knew
The speechless thing at her side belonged to
the grave. {1p}
It
blew
All night from the south; all night, Rahéro contended and kept
The
prow to the cresting sea; and, silent as though she slept,
The woman huddled
and quaked. And now was the peep of day.
High and long on their left
the mountainous island lay;
And over the peaks of Taiárapu arrows of sunlight
struck.
On shore the birds were beginning to sing: the ghostly ruck
Of the
buried had long ago returned to the covered grave;
And here on the sea, the
woman, waxing suddenly brave,
Turned her swiftly about and looked in the face
of the man.
And sure he was none that she knew, none of her country or
clan:
A stranger, mother-naked, and marred with the marks of fire,
But
comely and great of stature, a man to obey and admire.
And Rahéro
regarded her also, fixed, with a frowning face,
Judging the woman’s fitness
to mother a warlike race.
Broad of shoulder, ample of girdle, long in the
thigh,
Deep of bosom she was, and bravely supported his eye.
“Woman,”
said he, “last night the men of your folk -
Man, woman, and maid, smothered
my race in smoke.
It was done like cowards; and I, a mighty man of my
hands,
Escaped, a single life; and now to the empty lands
And smokeless
hearths of my people, sail, with yourself, alone.
Before your mother was
born, the die of to-day was thrown
And you selected:- your husband, vainly
striving, to fall
Broken between these hands:- yourself to be severed from
all,
The places, the people, you love - home, kindred, and clan -
And to
dwell in a desert and bear the babes of a kinless man.”
NOTES TO THE
SONG OF RAHÉRO
INTRODUCTION. - This tale, of which I have not
consciously changed a single feature, I received from tradition. It is
highly popular through all the country of the eight Tevas, the clan to which
Rahéro belonged; and particularly in Taiárapu, the windward peninsula of Tahiti,
where he lived. I have heard from end to end two versions; and as many as
five different persons have helped me with details. There seems no reason
why the tale should not be true.
{1a}
“The aito,” quasi champion, or brave. One skilled in the use
of some weapon, who wandered the country challenging distinguished rivals and
taking part in local quarrels. It was in the natural course of his
advancement to be at last employed by a chief, or king; and it would then be a
part of his duties to purvey the victim for sacrifice. One of the doomed
families was indicated; the aito took his weapon and went forth alone; a little
behind him bearers followed with the sacrificial basket. Sometimes the
victim showed fight, sometimes prevailed; more often, without doubt, he
fell. But whatever body was found, the bearers indifferently took
up.
{1b}
“Pai,” “Honoura,” and “Ahupu.” Legendary persons of
Tahiti, all natives of Taiárapu. Of the first two, I have collected
singular although imperfect legends, which I hope soon to lay before the public
in another place. Of Ahupu, except in snatches of song, little memory
appears to linger. She dwelt at least about Tepari, - “the sea-cliffs,” -
the eastern fastness of the isle; walked by paths known only to herself upon the
mountains; was courted by dangerous suitors who came swimming from adjacent
islands, and defended and rescued (as I gather) by the loyalty of native
fish. My anxiety to learn more of “Ahupu Vehine” became (during my stay in
Taiárapu) a cause of some diversion to that mirthful people, the
inhabitants.
{1c}
“Covered an oven.” The cooking fire is made in a hole in the
ground, and is then buried.
{1d}
“Flies.” This is perhaps an anachronism. Even speaking of
to-day in Tahiti, the phrase would have to be understood as referring mainly to
mosquitoes, and these only in watered valleys with close woods, such as I
suppose to form the surroundings of Rahéro’s homestead. Quarter of a mile
away, where the air moves freely, you shall look in vain for one.
{1e}
“Hook” of mother-of-pearl. Bright-hook fishing, and that with the
spear, appear to be the favourite native methods.
{1f}
“Leaves,” the plates of Tahiti.
{1g}
“Yottowas,” so spelt for convenience of pronunciation, quasi
Tacksmen in the Scottish Highlands. The organisation of eight subdistricts
and eight yottowas to a division, which was in use (until yesterday) among the
Tevas, I have attributed without authority to the next clan: see page
33.
{1h}
“Omare,” pronounce as a dactyl. A loaded quarter-staff, one of the
two favourite weapons of the Tahitian brave; the javelin, or casting spear, was
the other.
{1i}
“The ribbon of light.” Still to be seen (and heard) spinning from
one marae to another on Tahiti; or so I have it upon evidence that would rejoice
the Psychical Society.
{1j}
“Námunu-úra.” The complete name is Namunu-ura te aropa. Why
it should be pronounced Námunu, dactyllically, I cannot see, but so I have
always heard it. This was the clan immediately beyond the Tevas on the
south coast of the island. At the date of the tale the clan organisation
must have been very weak. There is no particular mention of Támatéa’s
mother going to Papara, to the head chief of her own clan, which would appear
her natural recourse. On the other hand, she seems to have visited various
lesser chiefs among the Tevas, and these to have excused themselves solely on
the danger of the enterprise. The broad distinction here drawn between
Nateva and Námunu-úra is therefore not impossibly anachronistic.
{1k}
“Hiopa the king.” Hiopa was really the name of the king (chief) of
Vaiau; but I could never learn that of the king of Paea - pronounce to rhyme
with the Indian ayah - and I gave the name where it was most
needed. This note must appear otiose indeed to readers who have never
heard of either of these two gentlemen; and perhaps there is only one person in
the world capable at once of reading my verses and spying the inaccuracy.
For him, for Mr. Tati Salmon, hereditary high chief of the Tevas, the note is
solely written: a small attention from a clansman to his chief.
{1l}
“Let the pigs be tapu.” It is impossible to explain tapu in
a note; we have it as an English word, taboo. Suffice it, that a thing
which was tapu must not be touched, nor a place that was tapu
visited.
{1m}
“Fish, the food of desire.” There is a special word in the Tahitian
language to signify hungering after fish. I may remark that here is
one of my chief difficulties about the whole story. How did king, commons,
women, and all come to eat together at this feast? But it troubled none of
my numerous authorities; so there must certainly be some natural
explanation.
{1n}
“The mustering word of the clan.”
Teva te ua,
Teva te
matai!
Teva the wind,
Teva the rain !
{1o}
“The star of the dead.” Venus as a morning star. I have
collected much curious evidence as to this belief. The dead retain their
taste for a fish diet, enter into copartnery with living fishers, and haunt the
reef and the lagoon. The conclusion attributed to the nameless lady of the
legend would be reached to-day, under the like circumstances, by ninety per cent
of Polynesians: and here I probably understate by one-tenth.
{1p}
See note “1o” above.
THE FEAST OF FAMINE
MARQUESAN
MANNERS
I. THE PRIEST’S VIGIL
In all the land of the
tribe was neither fish nor fruit,
And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to
the foot. {2a}
The
clans upon the left and the clans upon the right
Now oiled their carven maces
and scoured their daggers bright;
They gat them to the thicket, to the
deepest of the shade,
And lay with sleepless eyes in the deadly
ambuscade.
And oft in the starry even the song of morning rose,
What time
the oven smoked in the country of their foes;
For oft to loving hearts, and
waiting ears and sight,
The lads that went to forage returned not with the
night.
Now first the children sickened, and then the women paled,
And the
great arms of the warrior no more for war availed.
Hushed was the deep drum,
discarded was the dance;
And those that met the priest now glanced at him
askance.
The priest was a man of years, his eyes were ruby-red, {2b}
He
neither feared the dark nor the terrors of the dead,
He knew the songs of
races, the names of ancient date;
And the beard upon his bosom would have
bought the chief’s estate.
He dwelt in a high-built lodge, hard by the
roaring shore,
Raised on a noble terrace and with tikis {2c} at
the door.
Within it was full of riches, for he served his nation well,
And
full of the sound of breakers, like the hollow of a shell.
For weeks he let
them perish, gave never a helping sign,
But sat on his oiled platform to
commune with the divine,
But sat on his high terrace, with the tikis by his
side,
And stared on the blue ocean, like a parrot, ruby-eyed.
Dawn as
yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain height:
Out on the round of the sea
the gems of the morning light,
Up from the round of the sea the streamers of
the sun; -
But down in the depths of the valley the day was not begun.
In
the blue of the woody twilight burned red the cocoa-husk,
And the women and
men of the clan went forth to bathe in the dusk,
A word that began to go
round, a word, a whisper, a start:
Hope that leaped in the bosom, fear that
knocked on the heart:
“See, the priest is not risen - look, for his door is
fast!
He is going to name the victims; he is going to help us at
last.”
Thrice rose the sun to noon; and ever, like one of the
dead,
The priest lay still in his house with the roar of the sea in his
head;
There was never a foot on the floor, there was never a whisper of
speech;
Only the leering tikis stared on the blinding beach.
Again were
the mountains fired, again the morning broke;
And all the houses lay still,
but the house of the priest awoke.
Close in their covering roofs lay and
trembled the clan,
But the agèd, red-eyed priest ran forth like a lunatic
man;
And the village panted to see him in the jewels of death again,
In
the silver beards of the old and the hair of women slain.
Frenzy shook in his
limbs, frenzy shone in his eyes,
And still and again as he ran, the valley
rang with his cries.
All day long in the land, by cliff and thicket and
den,
He ran his lunatic rounds, and howled for the flesh of men;
All day
long he ate not, nor ever drank of the brook;
And all day long in their
houses the people listened and shook -
All day long in their houses they
listened with bated breath,
And never a soul went forth, for the sight of the
priest was death.
Three were the days of his running, as the gods
appointed of yore,
Two the nights of his sleeping alone in the place of
gore:
The drunken slumber of frenzy twice he drank to the lees,
On the
sacred stones of the High-place under the sacred trees;
With a lamp at his
ashen head he lay in the place of the feast,
And the sacred leaves of the
banyan rustled around the priest.
Last, when the stated even fell upon
terrace and tree,
And the shade of the lofty island lay leagues away to
sea,
And all the valleys of verdure were heavy with manna and musk,
The
wreck of the red-eyed priest came gasping home in the dusk.
He reeled across
the village, he staggered along the shore,
And between the leering tikis
crept groping through his door.
There went a stir through the lodges, the
voice of speech awoke;
Once more from the builded platforms arose the evening
smoke.
And those who were mighty in war, and those renowned for an art
Sat
in their stated seats and talked of the morrow apart.
II. THE
LOVERS
Hark! away in the woods - for the ears of love are sharp
-
Stealthily, quietly touched, the note of the one-stringed harp. {2d}
In
the lighted house of her father, why should Taheia start?
Taheia heavy of
hair, Taheia tender of heart,
Taheia the well-descended, a bountiful dealer
in love,
Nimble of foot like the deer, and kind of eye like the dove?
Sly
and shy as a cat, with never a change of face,
Taheia slips to the door, like
one that would breathe a space;
Saunters and pauses, and looks at the stars,
and lists to the seas;
Then sudden and swift as a cat, she plunges under the
trees.
Swift as a cat she runs, with her garment gathered high,
Leaping,
nimble of foot, running, certain of eye;
And ever to guide her way over the
smooth and the sharp,
Ever nearer and nearer the note of the one-stringed
harp;
Till at length, in a glade of the wood, with a naked mountain
above,
The sound of the harp thrown down, and she in the arms of her
love.
“Rua,” - “Taheia,” they cry - “my heart, my soul, and my eyes,”
And
clasp and sunder and kiss, with lovely laughter and sighs,
“Rua!” - “Taheia,
my love,” - “Rua, star of my night,
Clasp me, hold me, and love me, single
spring of delight.”
And Rua folded her close, he folded her near and
long,
The living knit to the living, and sang the lover’s
song:
Night, night it is, night upon the palms.
Night, night it
is, the land wind has blown.
Starry, starry night, over deep and
height;
Love, love in the valley, love all alone.
“Taheia,
heavy of hair, a foolish thing have we done,
To bind what gods have sundered
unkindly into one.
Why should a lowly lover have touched Taheia’s
skirt,
Taheia the well-descended, and Rua child of the dirt?”
“ - On
high with the haka-ikis my father sits in state,
Ten times fifty kinsmen
salute him in the gate;
Round all his martial body, and in bands across his
face,
The marks of the tattooer proclaim his lofty place.
I too, in the
hands of the cunning, in the sacred cabin of palm, {2e}
Have
shrunk like the mimosa, and bleated like the lamb;
Round half my tender body,
that none shall clasp but you,
For a crest and a fair adornment go dainty
lines of blue.
Love, love, beloved Rua, love levels all degrees,
And the
well-tattooed Taheia clings panting to your knees.”
“ - Taheia, song
of the morning, how long is the longest love?
A cry, a clasp of the hands, a
star that falls from above!
Ever at morn in the blue, and at night when all
is black,
Ever it skulks and trembles with the hunter, Death, on its
track.
Hear me, Taheia, death! For to-morrow the priest shall
awake,
And the names be named of the victims to bleed for the nation’s
sake;
And first of the numbered many that shall be slain ere noon,
Rua the
child of the dirt, Rua the kinless loon.
For him shall the drum be beat, for
him be raised the song,
For him to the sacred High-place the chaunting people
throng,
For him the oven smoke as for a speechless beast,
And the sire of
my Taheia come greedy to the feast.”
“Rua, be silent, spare me. Taheia
closes her ears.
Pity my yearning heart, pity my girlish years!
Flee from
the cruel hands, flee from the knife and coal,
Lie hid in the deeps of the
woods, Rua, sire of my soul!”
“Whither to flee, Taheia, whither in all of
the land?
The fires of the bloody kitchen are kindled on every hand;
On
every hand in the isle a hungry whetting of teeth,
Eyes in the trees above,
arms in the brush beneath.
Patience to lie in wait, cunning to follow the
sleuth,
Abroad the foes I have fought, and at home the friends of my
youth.”
“Love, love, beloved Rua, love has a clearer eye,
Hence from
the arms of love you go not forth to die.
There, where the broken mountain
drops sheer into the glen,
There shall you find a hold from the boldest
hunter of men;
There, in the deep recess, where the sun falls only at
noon,
And only once in the night enters the light of the moon,
Nor ever a
sound but of birds, or the rain when it falls with a shout;
For death and the
fear of death beleaguer the valley about.
Tapu it is, but the gods will
surely pardon despair;
Tapu, but what of that? If Rua can only
dare.
Tapu and tapu and tapu, I know they are every one right;
But the god
of every tapu is not always quick to smite.
Lie secret there, my Rua, in the
arms of awful gods,
Sleep in the shade of the trees on the couch of the
kindly sods,
Sleep and dream of Taheia, Taheia will wake for you;
And
whenever the land wind blows and the woods are heavy with dew,
Alone through
the horror of night, {2f}
with food for the soul of her love,
Taheia the undissuaded will hurry true as
the dove.”
“Taheia, the pit of the night crawls with treacherous
things,
Spirits of ultimate air and the evil souls of things;
The souls of
the dead, the stranglers, that perch in the trees of the wood,
Waiters for
all things human, haters of evil and good.”
“Rua, behold me, kiss me,
look in my eyes and read;
Are these the eyes of a maid that would leave her
lover in need?
Brave in the eye of day, my father ruled in the fight;
The
child of his loins, Taheia, will play the man in the night.”
So it was
spoken, and so agreed, and Taheia arose
And smiled in the stars and was gone,
swift as the swallow goes;
And Rua stood on the hill, and sighed, and
followed her flight,
And there were the lodges below, each with its door
alight;
From folk that sat on the terrace and drew out the even
long
Sudden crowings of laughter, monotonous drone of song;
The quiet
passage of souls over his head in the trees; {2g}
And
from all around the haven the crumbling thunder of seas.
“Farewell, my home,”
said Rua. “Farewell, O quiet seat!
To-morrow in all your valleys the
drum of death shall beat.”
III. THE FEAST
Dawn as yellow
as sulphur leaped on the naked peak,
And all the village was stirring, for
now was the priest to speak.
Forth on his terrace he came, and sat with the
chief in talk;
His lips were blackened with fever, his cheeks were whiter
than chalk;
Fever clutched at his hands, fever nodded his head,
But, quiet
and steady and cruel, his eyes shone ruby-red.
In the earliest rays of the
sun the chief rose up content;
Braves were summoned, and drummers; messengers
came and went;
Braves ran to their lodges, weapons were snatched from the
wall;
The commons herded together, and fear was over them all.
Festival
dresses they wore, but the tongue was dry in their mouth,
And the blinking
eyes in their faces skirted from north to south.
Now to the sacred
enclosure gathered the greatest and least,
And from under the shade of the
banyan arose the voice of the feast,
The frenzied roll of the drum, and a
swift, monotonous song.
Higher the sun swam up; the trade wind level and
strong
Awoke in the tops of the palms and rattled the fans aloud,
And over
the garlanded heads and shining robes of the crowd
Tossed the spiders of
shadow, scattered the jewels of sun.
Forty the tale of the drums, and the
forty throbbed like one;
A thousand hearts in the crowd, and the even chorus
of song,
Swift as the feet of a runner, trampled a thousand strong.
And
the old men leered at the ovens and licked their lips for the food;
And the
women stared at the lads, and laughed and looked to the wood.
As when the
sweltering baker, at night, when the city is dead,
Alone in the trough of
labour treads and fashions the bread;
So in the heat, and the reek, and the
touch of woman and man,
The naked spirit of evil kneaded the hearts of the
clan.
Now cold was at many a heart, and shaking in many a seat;
For
there were the empty baskets, but who was to furnish the meat?
For here was
the nation assembled, and there were the ovens anigh,
And out of a thousand
singers nine were numbered to die.
Till, of a sudden, a shock, a mace in the
air, a yell,
And, struck in the edge of the crowd, the first of the victims
fell. {2h}
Terror
and horrible glee divided the shrinking clan,
Terror of what was to follow,
glee for a diet of man.
Frenzy hurried the chaunt, frenzy rattled the
drums;
The nobles, high on the terrace, greedily mouthed their thumbs;
And
once and again and again, in the ignorant crowd below,
Once and again and
again descended the murderous blow.
Now smoked the oven, and now, with the
cutting lip of a shell,
A butcher of ninety winters jointed the bodies
well.
Unto the carven lodge, silent, in order due,
The grandees of the
nation one after one withdrew;
And a line of laden bearers brought to the
terrace foot,
On poles across their shoulders, the last reserve of
fruit.
The victims bled for the nobles in the old appointed way;
The fruit
was spread for the commons, for all should eat to-day.
And now was the
kava brewed, and now the cocoa ran,
Now was the hour of the dance for child
and woman and man;
And mirth was in every heart, and a garland on every
head,
And all was well with the living and well with the eight who were
dead.
Only the chiefs and the priest talked and consulted
awhile:
“To-morrow,” they said, and “To-morrow,” and nodded and seemed to
smile:
“Rua the child of dirt, the creature of common clay,
Rua must die
to-morrow, since Rua is gone to-day.”
Out of the groves of the valley,
where clear the blackbirds sang.
Sheer from the trees of the valley the face
of the mountain sprang;
Sheer and bare it rose, unscalable
barricade,
Beaten and blown against by the generous draught of the
trade.
Dawn on its fluted brow painted rainbow light,
Close on its
pinnacled crown trembled the stars at night.
Here and there in a cleft
clustered contorted trees,
Or the silver beard of a stream hung and swung in
the breeze.
High overhead, with a cry, the torrents leaped for the
main,
And silently sprinkled below in thin perennial rain.
Dark in the
staring noon, dark was Rua’s ravine,
Damp and cold was the air, and the face
of the cliffs was green.
Here, in the rocky pit, accursed already of
old,
On a stone in the midst of a river, Rua sat and was cold.
“Valley
of mid-day shadows, valley of silent falls,
Rua sang, and his voice went
hollow about the walls,
“Valley of shadow and rock, a doleful prison to
me,
What is the life you can give to a child of the sun and the
sea?”
And Rua arose and came to the open mouth of the glen,
Whence he
beheld the woods, and the sea, and houses of men.
Wide blew the riotous
trade, and smelt in his nostrils good;
It bowed the boats on the bay, and
tore and divided the wood;
It smote and sundered the groves as Moses smote
with the rod,
And the streamers of all the trees blew like banners
abroad;
And ever and on, in a lull, the trade wind brought him along
A
far-off patter of drums and a far-off whisper of song.
Swift as the
swallow’s wings, the diligent hands on the drum
Fluttered and hurried and
throbbed. “Ah, woe that I hear you come,”
Rua cried in his grief, “a
sorrowful sound to me,
Mounting far and faint from the resonant shore of the
sea!
Woe in the song! for the grave breathes in the singers’ breath,
And I
hear in the tramp of the drums the beat of the heart of death.
Home of my
youth! no more, through all the length of the years,
No more to the place of
the echoes of early laughter and tears,
No more shall Rua return; no more as
the evening ends,
To crowded eyes of welcome, to the reaching hands of
friends.”
All day long from the High-place the drums and the singing
came,
And the even fell, and the sun went down, a wheel of flame;
And
night came gleaning the shadows and hushing the sounds of the wood;
And
silence slept on all, where Rua sorrowed and stood.
But still from the shore
of the bay the sound of the festival rang,
And still the crowd in the
High-place danced and shouted and sang.
Now over all the isle terror was
breathed abroad
Of shadowy hands from the trees and shadowy snares in the
sod;
And before the nostrils of night, the shuddering hunter of
men
Hurried, with beard on shoulder, back to his lighted den.
“Taheia,
here to my side!” - “Rua, my Rua, you!”
And cold from the clutch of terror,
cold with the damp of the dew,
Taheia, heavy of hair, leaped through the dark
to his arms;
Taheia leaped to his clasp, and was folded in from
alarms.
“Rua, beloved, here, see what your love has brought;
Coming -
alas! returning - swift as the shuttle of thought;
Returning, alas! for
to-night, with the beaten drum and the voice,
In the shine of many torches
must the sleepless clan rejoice;
And Taheia the well-descended, the daughter
of chief and priest,
Taheia must sit in her place in the crowded bench of the
feast.”
So it was spoken; and she, girding her garment high,
Fled and was
swallowed of woods, swift as the sight of an eye.
Night over isle and sea
rolled her curtain of stars,
Then a trouble awoke in the air, the east was
banded with bars;
Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain
height;
Dawn, in the deepest glen, fell a wonder of light;
High and clear
stood the palms in the eye of the brightening east,
And lo! from the sides of
the sea the broken sound of the feast!
As, when in days of summer, through
open windows, the fly
Swift as a breeze and loud as a trump goes by,
But
when frosts in the field have pinched the wintering mouse,
Blindly noses and
buzzes and hums in the firelit house:
So the sound of the feast gallantly
trampled at night,
So it staggered and drooped, and droned in the morning
light.
IV. THE RAID
It chanced that as Rua sat in the
valley of silent falls,
He heard a calling of doves from high on the cliffy
walls.
Fire had fashioned of yore, and time had broken, the rocks;
There
were rooting crannies for trees and nesting-places for flocks;
And he saw on
the top of the cliffs, looking up from the pit of the shade,
A flicker of
wings and sunshine, and trees that swung in the trade.
“The trees swing in
the trade,” quoth Rua, doubtful of words,
“And the sun stares from the sky,
but what should trouble the birds?”
Up from the shade he gazed, where high
the parapet shone,
And he was aware of a ledge and of things that moved
thereon.
“What manner of things are these? Are they spirits abroad by
day?
Or the foes of my clan that are come, bringing death by a perilous
way?”
The valley was gouged like a vessel, and round like the vessel’s
lip,
With a cape of the side of the hill thrust forth like the bows of a
ship.
On the top of the face of the cape a volley of sun struck fair,
And
the cape overhung like a chin a gulph of sunless air.
“Silence, heart!
What is that? - that, that flickered and shone,
Into the sun for an instant,
and in an instant gone?
Was it a warrior’s plume, a warrior’s girdle of
hair?
Swung in the loop of a rope, is he making a bridge of the
air?”
Once and again Rua saw, in the trenchant edge of the sky,
The
giddy conjuring done. And then, in the blink of an eye,
A scream caught
in with the breath, a whirling packet of limbs,
A lump that dived in the
gulph, more swift than a dolphin swims;
And there was the lump at his feet,
and eyes were alive in the lump.
Sick was the soul of Rua, ambushed close in
a clump;
Sick of soul he drew near, making his courage stout;
And he
looked in the face of the thing, and the life of the thing went out.
And he
gazed on the tattooed limbs, and, behold, he knew the man:
Hoka, a chief of
the Vais, the truculent foe of his clan:
Hoka a moment since that stepped in
the loop of the rope,
Filled with the lust of war, and alive with courage and
hope.
Again to the giddy cornice Rua lifted his eyes,
And again beheld
men passing in the armpit of the skies.
“Foes of my race!” cried Rua, “the
mouth of Rua is true:
Never a shark in the deep is nobler of soul than
you.
There was never a nobler foray, never a bolder plan;
Never a dizzier
path was trod by the children of man;
And Rua, your evil-dealer through all
the days of his years,
“Counts it honour to hate you, honour to fall by your
spears.”
And Rua straightened his back. “O Vais, a scheme for a
scheme!”
Cried Rua and turned and descended the turbulent stair of the
stream,
Leaping from rock to rock as the water-wagtail at home
Flits
through resonant valleys and skims by boulder and foam.
And Rua burst from
the glen and leaped on the shore of the brook,
And straight for the roofs of
the clan his vigorous way he took.
Swift were the heels of his flight, and
loud behind as he went
Rattled the leaping stones on the line of his long
descent.
And ever he thought as he ran, and caught at his gasping
breath,
“O the fool of a Rua, Rua that runs to his death!
But the right is
the right,” thought Rua, and ran like the wind on the foam,
“The right is the
right for ever, and home for ever home.
For what though the oven smoke?
And what though I die ere morn?
There was I nourished and tended, and there
was Taheia born.”
Noon was high on the High-place, the second noon of the
feast;
And heat and shameful slumber weighed on people and priest;
And the
heart drudged slow in bodies heavy with monstrous meals;
And the senseless
limbs were scattered abroad like spokes of wheels;
And crapulous women sat
and stared at the stones anigh
With a bestial droop of the lip and a swinish
rheum in the eye.
As about the dome of the bees in the time for the drones to
fall,
The dead and the maimed are scattered, and lie, and stagger, and
crawl;
So on the grades of the terrace, in the ardent eye of the day,
The
half-awake and the sleepers clustered and crawled and lay;
And loud as the
dome of the bees, in the time of a swarming horde,
A horror of many insects
hung in the air and roared.
Rua looked and wondered; he said to himself
in his heart:
“Poor are the pleasures of life, and death is the better
part.”
But lo! on the higher benches a cluster of tranquil folk
Sat by
themselves, nor raised their serious eyes, nor spoke:
Women with robes
unruffled and garlands duly arranged,
Gazing far from the feast with faces of
people estranged;
And quiet amongst the quiet, and fairer than all the
fair,
Taheia, the well-descended, Taheia, heavy of hair.
And the soul of
Rua awoke, courage enlightened his eyes,
And he uttered a summoning shout and
called on the clan to rise.
Over against him at once, in the spotted shade of
the trees,
Owlish and blinking creatures scrambled to hands and knees;
On
the grades of the sacred terrace, the driveller woke to fear,
And the hand of
the ham-drooped warrior brandished a wavering spear.
And Rua folded his arms,
and scorn discovered his teeth;
Above the war-crowd gibbered, and Rua stood
smiling beneath.
Thick, like leaves in the autumn, faint, like April
sleet,
Missiles from tremulous hands quivered around his feet;
And Taheia
leaped from her place; and the priest, the ruby-eyed,
Ran to the front of the
terrace, and brandished his arms, and cried:
“Hold, O fools, he brings
tidings!” and “Hold, ‘tis the love of my heart!”
Till lo! in front of the
terrace, Rua pierced with a dart.
Taheia cherished his head, and the aged
priest stood by,
And gazed with eyes of ruby at Rua’s darkening
eye.
“Taheia, here is the end, I die a death for a man.
I have given the
life of my soul to save an unsavable clan.
See them, the drooping of hams!
behold me the blinking crew:
Fifty spears they cast, and one of fifty
true!
And you, O priest, the foreteller, foretell for yourself if you
can,
Foretell the hour of the day when the Vais shall burst on your
clan!
By the head of the tapu cleft, with death and fire in their
hand,
Thick and silent like ants, the warriors swarm in the land.”
And
they tell that when next the sun had climbed to the noonday skies,
It shone
on the smoke of feasting in the country of the Vais.
NOTES TO THE
FEAST OF FAMINE
In this ballad, I have strung together some of the
more striking particularities of the Marquesas. It rests upon no
authority; it is in no sense, like “Rahéro,” a native story; but a patchwork of
details of manners and the impressions of a traveller. It may seem
strange, when the scene is laid upon these profligate islands, to make the story
hinge on love. But love is not less known in the Marquesas than elsewhere;
nor is there any cause of suicide more common in the islands.
{2a}
“Pit of Popoi.” Where the breadfruit was stored for
preservation.
{2b}
“Ruby-red.” The priest’s eyes were probably red from the abuse of
kava. His beard (ib.) is said to be worth an estate; for the beards
of old men are the favourite head adornment of the Marquesans, as the hair of
women formed their most costly girdle. The former, among this generally
beardless and short-lived people, fetch to-day considerable sums.
{2c}
“Tikis.” The tiki is an ugly image hewn out of wood or
stone.
{2d}
“The one-stringed harp.” Usually employed for serenades.
{2e}
“The sacred cabin of palm.” Which, however, no woman could
approach. I do not know where women were tattooed; probably in the common
house, or in the bush, for a woman was a creature of small account. I must
guard the reader against supposing Taheia was at all disfigured; the art of the
Marquesan tattooer is extreme; and she would appear to be clothed in a web of
lace, inimitably delicate, exquisite in pattern, and of a bluish hue that at
once contrasts and harmonises with the warm pigment of the native skin. It
would be hard to find a woman more becomingly adorned than “a well-tattooed”
Marquesan.
{2f}
“The horror of night.” The Polynesian fear of ghosts and of the
dark has been already referred to. Their life is beleaguered by the
dead.
{2g}
“The quiet passage of souls.” So, I am told, the natives explain
the sound of a little wind passing overhead unfelt.
{2h}
“The first of the victims fell.” Without doubt, this whole scene is
untrue to fact. The victims were disposed of privately and some time
before. And indeed I am far from claiming the credit of any high degree of
accuracy for this ballad. Even in a time of famine, it is probable that
Marquesan life went far more gaily than is here represented. But the
melancholy of to-day lies on the writer’s mind.
TICONDEROGA
A
LEGEND OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS
TICONDEROGA
This is the tale
of the man
Who heard a word in the night
In the land of the heathery
hills,
In the days of the feud and the fight.
By the sides of the rainy
sea,
Where never a stranger came,
On the awful lips of the dead,
He
heard the outlandish name.
It sang in his sleeping ears,
It hummed in his
waking head:
The name - Ticonderoga,
The utterance of the
dead.
I. THE SAYING OF THE NAME
On the loch-sides of
Appin,
When the mist blew from the sea,
A Stewart stood with a
Cameron:
An angry man was he.
The blood beat in his ears,
The blood ran
hot to his head,
The mist blew from the sea,
And there was the Cameron
dead.
“O, what have I done to my friend,
O, what have I done to
mysel’,
That he should be cold and dead,
And I in the danger of
all?
Nothing but danger about me,
Danger behind and before,
Death
at wait in the heather
In Appin and Mamore,
Hate at all of the
ferries
And death at each of the fords,
Camerons priming gunlocks
And
Camerons sharpening swords.”
But this was a man of counsel,
This was a
man of a score,
There dwelt no pawkier Stewart
In Appin or Mamore.
He
looked on the blowing mist,
He looked on the awful dead,
And there came a
smile on his face
And there slipped a thought in his head.
Out over
cairn and moss,
Out over scrog and scaur,
He ran as runs the
clansman
That bears the cross of war.
His heart beat in his body,
His
hair clove to his face,
When he came at last in the gloaming
To the dead
man’s brother’s place.
The east was white with the moon,
The west with the
sun was red,
And there, in the house-doorway,
Stood the brother of the
dead.
“I have slain a man to my danger,
I have slain a man to my
death.
I put my soul in your hands,”
The panting Stewart saith.
“I lay
it bare in your hands,
For I know your hands are leal;
And be you my targe
and bulwark
From the bullet and the steel.”
Then up and spoke the
Cameron,
And gave him his hand again:
“There shall never a man in
Scotland
Set faith in me in vain;
And whatever man you have
slaughtered,
Of whatever name or line,
By my sword and yonder
mountain,
I make your quarrel mine. {3a}
I
bid you in to my fireside,
I share with you house and hall;
It stands upon
my honour
To see you safe from all.”
It fell in the time of
midnight,
When the fox barked in the den
And the plaids were over the
faces
In all the houses of men,
That as the living Cameron
Lay
sleepless on his bed,
Out of the night and the other world,
Came in to him
the dead.
“My blood is on the heather,
My bones are on the
hill;
There is joy in the home of ravens
That the young shall eat their
fill.
My blood is poured in the dust,
My soul is spilled in the
air;
And the man that has undone me
Sleeps in my brother’s
care.”
“I’m wae for your death, my brother,
But if all of my house
were dead,
I couldnae withdraw the plighted hand,
Nor break the word once
said.”
“O, what shall I say to our father,
In the place to which I
fare?
O, what shall I say to our mother,
Who greets to see me
there?
And to all the kindly Camerons
That have lived and died long-syne
-
Is this the word you send them,
Fause-hearted brother
mine?”
“It’s neither fear nor duty,
It’s neither quick nor
dead
Shall gar me withdraw the plighted hand,
Or break the word once
said.”
Thrice in the time of midnight,
When the fox barked in the
den,
And the plaids were over the faces
In all the houses of
men,
Thrice as the living Cameron
Lay sleepless on his bed,
Out of the
night and the other world
Came in to him the dead,
And cried to him for
vengeance
On the man that laid him low;
And thrice the living
Cameron
Told the dead Cameron, no.
“Thrice have you seen me,
brother,
But now shall see me no more,
Till you meet your angry
fathers
Upon the farther shore.
Thrice have I spoken, and now,
Before
the cock be heard,
I take my leave for ever
With the naming of a
word.
It shall sing in your sleeping ears,
It shall hum in your waking
head,
The name - Ticonderoga,
And the warning of the dead.”
Now
when the night was over
And the time of people’s fears,
The Cameron walked
abroad,
And the word was in his ears.
“Many a name I know,
But never a
name like this;
O, where shall I find a skilly man
Shall tell me what it
is?”
With many a man he counselled
Of high and low degree,
With the
herdsmen on the mountains
And the fishers of the sea.
And he came and went
unweary,
And read the books of yore,
And the runes that were written of
old
On stones upon the moor.
And many a name he was told,
But never the
name of his fears -
Never, in east or west,
The name that rang in his
ears:
Names of men and of clans;
Names for the grass and the tree,
For
the smallest tarn in the mountains,
The smallest reef in the sea:
Names
for the high and low,
The names of the craig and the flat;
But in all the
land of Scotland,
Never a name like that.
II. THE SEEKING OF THE
NAME
And now there was speech in the south,
And a man of the south
that was wise,
A periwig’d lord of London, {3b}
Called
on the clans to rise.
And the riders rode, and the summons
Came to the
western shore,
To the land of the sea and the heather,
To Appin and
Mamore.
It called on all to gather
From every scrog and scaur,
That
loved their fathers’ tartan
And the ancient game of war.
And down the
watery valley
And up the windy hill,
Once more, as in the olden,
The
pipes were sounding shrill;
Again in highland sunshine
The naked steel was
bright;
And the lads, once more in tartan
Went forth again to
fight.
“O, why should I dwell here
With a weird upon my life,
When
the clansmen shout for battle
And the war-swords clash in strife?
I cannae
joy at feast,
I cannae sleep in bed,
For the wonder of the word
And the
warning of the dead.
It sings in my sleeping ears,
It hums in my waking
head,
The name - Ticonderoga,
The utterance of the dead.
Then up, and
with the fighting men
To march away from here,
Till the cry of the great
war-pipe
Shall drown it in my ear!”
Where flew King George’s
ensign
The plaided soldiers went:
They drew the sword in Germany,
In
Flanders pitched the tent.
The bells of foreign cities
Rang far across the
plain:
They passed the happy Rhine,
They drank the rapid Main.
Through
Asiatic jungles
The Tartans filed their way,
And the neighing of the
war-pipes
Struck terror in Cathay. {3c}
“Many
a name have I heard,” he thought,
“In all the tongues of men,
Full many a
name both here and there.
Full many both now and then.
When I was at home
in my father’s house
In the land of the naked knee,
Between the eagles
that fly in the lift
And the herrings that swim in the sea,
And now that I
am a captain-man
With a braw cockade in my hat -
Many a name have I
heard,” he thought,
“But never a name like that.”
III. THE PLACE
OF THE NAME
There fell a war in a woody place,
Lay far across the
sea,
A war of the march in the mirk midnight
And the shot from behind the
tree,
The shaven head and the painted face,
The silent foot in the
wood,
In a land of a strange, outlandish tongue
That was hard to be
understood.
It fell about the gloaming
The general stood with his
staff,
He stood and he looked east and west
With little mind to
laugh.
“Far have I been and much have I seen,
And kent both gain and
loss,
But here we have woods on every hand
And a kittle water to
cross.
Far have I been and much have I seen,
But never the beat of
this;
And there’s one must go down to that waterside
To see how deep it
is.”
It fell in the dusk of the night
When unco things betide,
The
skilly captain, the Cameron,
Went down to that waterside.
Canny and soft
the captain went;
And a man of the woody land,
With the shaven head and
the painted face,
Went down at his right hand.
It fell in the quiet
night,
There was never a sound to ken;
But all of the woods to the right
and the left
Lay filled with the painted men.
“Far have I been and
much have I seen,
Both as a man and boy,
But never have I set forth a
foot
On so perilous an employ.”
It fell in the dusk of the night
When
unco things betide,
That he was aware of a captain-man
Drew near to the
waterside.
He was aware of his coming
Down in the gloaming alone;
And
he looked in the face of the man
And lo! the face was his own.
“This is my
weird,” he said,
“And now I ken the worst;
For many shall fall the
morn,
But I shall fall with the first.
O, you of the outland
tongue,
You of the painted face,
This is the place of my death;
Can you
tell me the name of the place?”
“Since the Frenchmen have been here
They
have called it Sault-Marie;
But that is a name for priests,
And not for
you and me.
It went by another word,”
Quoth he of the shaven head:
“It
was called Ticonderoga
In the days of the great dead.”
And it fell on
the morrow’s morning,
In the fiercest of the fight,
That the Cameron bit
the dust
As he foretold at night;
And far from the hills of heather
Far
from the isles of the sea,
He sleeps in the place of the name
As it was
doomed to be.
NOTES TO TICONDEROGA
INTRODUCTION. - I first
heard this legend of my own country from that friend of men of letters, Mr.
Alfred Nutt, “there in roaring London’s central stream,” and since the ballad
first saw the light of day in Scribner’s Magazine, Mr. Nutt and Lord
Archibald Campbell have been in public controversy on the facts. Two
clans, the Camerons and the Campbells, lay claim to this bracing story; and they
do well: the man who preferred his plighted troth to the commands and menaces of
the dead is an ancestor worth disputing. But the Campbells must rest
content: they have the broad lands and the broad page of history; this appanage
must be denied them; for between the name of Cameron and that of
Campbell, the muse will never hesitate.
{3a}
Mr. Nutt reminds me it was “by my sword and Ben Cruachan” the Cameron
swore.
{3b}
“A periwig’d lord of London.” The first Pitt.
{3c}
“Cathay.” There must be some omission in General Stewart’s charming
History of the Highland Regiments, a book that might well be republished
and continued; or it scarce appears how our friend could have got to
China.
HEATHER ALE
A GALLOWAY LEGEND
From the bonny
bells of heather
They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than
honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank
it,
And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
In their
dwellings underground.
There rose a king in Scotland,
A fell man to
his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
He hunted them like roes.
Over
miles of the red mountain
He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish
bodies
Of the dying and the dead.
Summer came in the country,
Red
was the heather bell;
But the manner of the brewing
Was none alive to
tell.
In graves that were like children’s
On many a mountain head,
The
Brewsters of the Heather
Lay numbered with the dead.
The king in the
red moorland
Rode on a summer’s day;
And the bees hummed, and the
curlews
Cried beside the way.
The king rode, and was angry,
Black was
his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather
And lack the Heather
Ale.
It fortuned that his vassals,
Riding free on the heath,
Came
on a stone that was fallen
And vermin hid beneath.
Rudely plucked from
their hiding,
Never a word they spoke:
A son and his aged father -
Last
of the dwarfish folk.
The king sat high on his charger,
He looked on
the little men;
And the dwarfish and swarthy couple
Looked at the king
again.
Down by the shore he had them;
And there on the giddy brink -
“I
will give you life, ye vermin,
For the secret of the drink.”
There
stood the son and father
And they looked high and low;
The heather was red
around them,
The sea rumbled below.
And up and spoke the father,
Shrill
was his voice to hear:
“I have a word in private,
A word for the royal
ear.
“Life is dear to the aged,
And honour a little thing;
I would
gladly sell the secret,”
Quoth the Pict to the King.
His voice was small
as a sparrow’s,
And shrill and wonderful clear:
“I would gladly sell my
secret,
Only my son I fear.
“For life is a little matter,
And death
is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honour
Under the eye of my
son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
And cast him far in the
deep;
And it’s I will tell the secret
That I have sworn to
keep.”
They took the son and bound him,
Neck and heels in a
thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
And flung him far and
strong,
And the sea swallowed his body,
Like that of a child of ten;
-
And there on the cliff stood the father,
Last of the dwarfish
men.
“True was the word I told you:
Only my son I feared;
For I
doubt the sapling courage
That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is
the torture,
Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
The secret
of Heather Ale.”
NOTE TO HEATHER ALE
Among the curiosities
of human nature, this legend claims a high place. It is needless to remind
the reader that the Picts were never exterminated, and form to this day a large
proportion of the folk of Scotland: occupying the eastern and the central parts,
from the Firth of Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord
of Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler
should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors is
already strange: that it should have begotten this wild legend seems
incredible. Is it possible the chronicler’s error was merely nominal? that
what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to receive, about
the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and perhaps Lappish savages,
small of stature, black of hue, dwelling underground - possibly also the
distillers of some forgotten spirit? See Mr. Campbell’s Tales of the
West Highlands.
CHRISTMAS AT SEA
The sheets were
frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where
a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off
the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things
a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But
'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every
hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and
stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head
and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further
forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life
and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth,
for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North
Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers
running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his
eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The
good red fires were burning bright in every 'longshore home;
The windows
sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the
victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung
with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all
days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas
morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was
born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My
mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the
firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates
that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk
that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to
sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and
hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.
They lit the high
sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
“All hands to loose topgallant sails,”
I heard the captain call.
“By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,” our first
mate, Jackson, cried.
. . . “It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he
replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and
good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As
the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary
headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath,
every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out
to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was
just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing
old.
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