Fledging

“ Up and away for life! be fleet!— The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, Curdles the blood to the marble bones, Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, And hems in life with narrowing fence. Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,— The punctual stars will vigil keep,— Embalmed by purifying cold; The wind shall sing their dead march old, The snow is no ignoble shroud, The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. ”

“ With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that side into the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions—kindled warrior instincts—amongst the dust that lay around us; dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Créci to Trafalgar. ”

“ Comes bruised from battered jetty and sea-wall;
Comes as one limping from a sailor’s brawl,
Seeking the comfort of tall roofs and trees,
With tales of dying on disastrous seas—
This city wind that is not wind at all. ”

“ We fancied as we rose to the top of the sea, that the wind was blowing with even greater force than before, and our frail raft was dashed here and there, with even greater violence than it had yet endured. ”

“ While I had been in a state of stupor, a breeze or squall, mayhap the same squall that foundered your ship, had arisen. Left to herself, the cutter's sails had been thrown aback, her main-boom had jibed; she had been capsized, and was now floating, keel upmost, in the sea; floating, I knew not where, with me imprisoned helplessly and dying of hunger, thirst, terror, and suffocation, (but I cannot add remorse,) in her dark, inverted, and waterlogged cabin! ”

“ Drifting hither and yon, now forced on by the wind of a stormy sea, now caught in a current and driven along, these rudderless, purposeless, wanderers cover many a weary mile, with only screaming sea birds to break the monotony of the roaring gale or the soft surge of a placid sea. ”

“ When God's great voice assembles The fleet on Judgment Day, The ghosts of ruined ships will rise In sea and strait and bay. Though they have lain for ages Beneath the changeless flood, They shall be white as silver, But one — shall be like blood. ”

“ I could have prayed for such another squall as I have described to burst upon us for the life that would come to the spirit out of the lightning flash, the roar of thunder, the shriek of wind, the fierce blow of the black surge, and the tempestuous hiss of its dissolving spume. I cudgelled my wits for a solution of the voice, but to no purpose. It was ridiculous to suppose that a man lay hidden below. For what sailor of the crew but would not be quickly missed? ”

“ Furious he comes; his winged sons obey
Their frantic sire, and madden all the sea.
The billows rave, the wind's fierce tyrant roars,
And with his thundering terrors shakes the shores:
Broken by waves, the vessel's frame is rent,
And strews with planks the watery element. ”

“ A great wind arose over the land, the clouds flew across the sky, and it grew as dark as night; the leaves fell from the trees, and the water foamed and dashed upon the shore. In the distance the ships were being tossed to and fro on the waves, and he heard them firing signals of distress. ”

“ And fleet as wind through hazel bush The wild career attends.
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode, Splash! splash! along the sea; The scourge is red, the spur drops blood, The flashing pebbles flee.
How fled what moonshine faintly showed! How fled what darkness hid! How fled the earth beneath their feet, The heaven above their head!
"Dost fear? dost fear? The moon shines clear. And well the dead can ride; Does faithful Helen fear for them?"— "O leave in peace the dead!"—
"Barb! Barb! methinks I hear the cock; [Pg 51] The sand will soon be run: Barb! Barb! I smell the morning air ”

“ How fleeting is time, how swiftly does old age creep upon us with its infirmities. The curling smoke, dispelled by the passing wind, the water that glides with a babbling murmur in the gentle stream, leave as deep a mark of their passage as do the fleeting days of man. ”

“ On many a dreary and misty night,
'T will be seen by the rays of the signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright! ”

“ Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. ”

“ And then to me, “You go, for you are young And strong, and life throbs quickest in your veins, And you have eyes more strong to see, for ours Are dimmed by the dread frost-mists of this land; And creep out there beyond yon gleaming ledge, And bring me word of what you there may see. [Pg 67] And if you meet no sign of mast or sail, Or hull or wreck, or mark of living soul, Then we will turn our faces to the south; For this great ocean’s vastness hems us in, And death here nightly creeps from strand to strand, And binds with girth of black the gleaming world.” ”

“ The furious tide in elemental fight
Is lashing fierce and hoar with giant might,—
The bleeding shores the tale shall tell the main!
Brave sailor, reeling in thy storm-drunk bark,
Blinded by sheeted rain blown tempest-wild,
And vexed with roaring darkness round about!
The heaven-sent vision fair of wife and child
Calm seated at love's hearth, with face ahark,
Makes thee divine amid the awful rout. ”

“ Their trampling sounded nearer!
'Oh! haste thee, haste!' the lady cries,
'Though tempests round us gather,
I'll meet the raging of the skies,
But not an angry father.'—
The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her—
When—oh! too strong for human hand! ”

“ Picture those who have never in all their lives encountered a stronger gale than needed a safe hand to keep on the hat, turning all sorts of imaginable somersaults, and who never heard any noise louder over their heads than when some relative fell down drunk upon the chamber-floor at a feast-time, first listening to the tramp, and thunder, and hurly-burly on deck, when the ship is struck by a heavy sea, and every timber groans again in its deep agony. ”

“ Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;
The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;
Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;
The hedges are all red with haws and hips,
The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night. ”

“ The feet of man leave earth sometimes when the spirit rides out reckless of land or sea, or heaven or hell, and these plunderers of the deep took no reckoning of life or death when they rode out on the gale, where the beach combers shattered up the rocks, and the creatures of the sea came huddling landward to take refuge among the kelp rafts. ”

“ Think of our situation, mad with thirst ourselves and struggling with a madman, a killing north-easter blowing like knives through our frozen bodies, the sea leaping and roaring around us, and nothing between us and the bottom but the little old boat we were in. ”

“ Regardless of fatigue, they leave their homes, and fly to the spot where they expect their husbands to land, or ascend the summit of a rock, to look out for them on the bosom of the deep. Should they get the glimpse of a sail, they watch, with trembling solicitude, its alternate rise and disappearance on the waves ”

“ How the wild winds blow; they whip about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!—it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. ”

“ For the wind spread her skirts to the bigness of three of her,
“Who sent these ships to the rescue of those,
Who have perilled their lives in these Northern snows?
Did he spring from the mob, the benevolent ‘masses,’
Or from the detestable ‘upper classes’?” ”

“ Make me a pair of wings, and together we will escape from this island prison."
"My boy," the grave sire replied, "thou shalt surely try, but flight is no easy matter, and thou must first learn thy lesson. Mark well my words. Steer always a middle flight; there only safety lies. If you fly low the sea spray will wet your flagging feathers, if high the sun will melt the wax. ”

“ THE RAFT-BUILDERS All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.
When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. ”

“ Far across the sea they flew, to where a great vessel, labouring in a heavy gale, was ploughing her sturdy way along—to where a young man stood clinging to the iron stanchions, and gazed out into the darkness with sorrow in his eyes. ”

“ Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.
For the wind of his feet still straightly shaping,
He loosed at our breasts from his eyes escaping
One crooked swift glance like a javelin leaping.
Fleet are his feet and his heart apart. ”

“ Then I walked about till I came to a great river of sweet water, running with a strong current; whereupon I called to mind the raft I had made aforetime and said to myself, “Needs must I make me another raft [and commit myself to the current;] haply I may win out of this strait. If I escape I have my desire and I vow to God the Most High to foreswear travel; and if I perish, I shall be at peace from toil and misery.” ”

“ So he went, feeling very frightened, and he shivered and shook, and his knees trembled; and there arose a great wind, and the clouds flew by, and it grew very dark, and the sea rose mountains high, and the ships were tossed about, and the sky was partly blue in the middle, but at the sides very dark and red, as in a great tempest. ”

“ Or a woman, the wife of a sea-captain, sitting on the veranda at home in the bright moonlight, sees the familiar earth vanish in a world of water, and looks suddenly upon her husband’s ship as it reels to the gale, turns over to the very edge of destruction, and then rights itself with half its crew swept overboard—and all this while the precise event befell a thousand miles away. ”

“ Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind! My soul in storm is but a tattered sail, Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale; In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing: Oh! swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,— To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find. ”

“ Having landed them not far from the spot where I lay,—concealed by the shadow of a monument on the bank,—the boat again departed, with the same fleetness, over the flood.
Never had the prospect of an adventure come more welcome than at this moment, when my fancy was weaving such chains for my heart, as threatened a bondage, of all others, the most difficult to break. To become enamoured thus of a creature of [pg 53] my own imagination, was the worst, because the most lasting, of follies. ”

“ The world would picture the good ship caught in some furious tempest, dashed to pieces, and engulfed amid the roar of the billows, the howling of the wind, and the wild cries for help of terror-stricken men. ”

“ We often marvelled whether any vessel ever passed in the night, as we had no fiery beacon to attract attention.
Finding themselves preyed upon, the sea-birds became wilder, and food grew scarce. It is easy to imagine the agony in which, with haggard eyes and wildly beating hearts, we twice saw the sails of passing ships ”

“ To approach the sweet shore after a tedious voyage, and then to be suddenly and unexpectedly prohibited from landing—this is so maddening to the temper, that no one who had ever experienced the trial would say that even the most violent impatience of such restraint is wholly inexcusable. ”

“ But away from the stifled ship.
Fleeter than any wind.
With a kiss on the twisted lip
Of the face that she leaves behind,
A breath steals forth—and the wind but plays
On a mask that is left behind. ”

“ In the wild confusion of squeaking, straining planks, the thump of waves against the porthole, the demon-shrieks of infuriated wind, and the shouts and running to and fro of sailors overhead, it seemed impossible that any human being could sleep. ”

“ Loud rattling shakes the mountains and the plain;
Heav'n bellies downward, and descends in rain.
Whole sheets of water from the clouds are sent,
Which, hissing thro' the planks, the flames prevent,
And stop the fiery pest. Four ships alone
Burn to the waist, and for the fleet atone. ”

“ You have read in many a sea story about the delight, the almost insane ecstasy, of castaway men adrift in open boats who are dying of hunger, thirst, and disease, when, at last, a rescuing ship approaches or they see land. ”

“ Think of a shipwreck horror, the stricken vessel floundering through a raging sea, shaken and strained in every joint, amid darkness impenetrable, relieved, no, intensified, by the lightning's glare, and quivering with the thunder's crash, and on her decks a wailing company, waiting for death to come to them from the fire within her or from the storm without. ”

“ To wreck one solitary ship, a whole ocean is convulsed, and desolate shores in faraway lands are storm-lashed for days. So is it in revolutions The unchained winds of men’s passions sweep over a larger space than is needed. ”