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| WOE for the brave ship Orient! | |
| Woe for the old ship Orient! | |
| For in broad, broad light, and with land in sight, | |
| Where the waters bubbled white, | |
| One great sharp shriek! One shudder of affright!— | 5 |
| And—down went the brave old ship, the Orient! | |
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| It was the fairest day in the merry month of May, | |
| And sleepiness had settled on the seas; | |
| And we had our white sail set, high up, and higher yet, | |
| And our flag flashed and fluttered at its ease; | 10 |
| The cross of St. George, that in mountain and in gorge,— | |
| On the hot and dusty plain,— | |
| On the tiresome, trackless main,— | |
| Conquering out,—conquering home again,— | |
| Had flamed, the world over, on the breeze. | 15 |
| Ours was the far-famed Albion, | |
| And she had her best look of might and beauty on, | |
| As she swept across the seas that day. | |
| The wind was fair and soft, both alow and aloft, | |
| And we wore the even hours away. | 20 |
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| The steadying sun heaved up as day drew on, | |
| And there grew a long swell of the sea. | |
| And, first in upper air, then under, everywhere, | |
| From the topmost towering sail | |
| Down, down to quarter-rail | 25 |
| The wind began to breathe more free. | |
| It was soon to breathe its last, | |
| For a wild and bitter blast | |
| Was the master of that stormy day to be. | |
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| “Ho! Hilloa! A sail!” was the topman’s hail: | 30 |
| “A sail, hull-down upon our lee!” | |
| Then with sea-glass to his eye, | |
| And his gray locks blowing by, | |
| The Admiral sought what she might be. | |
| And from top, and from deck, | 35 |
| Was it ship? Was it wreck? A far-off, far-off speck, | |
| Of a sudden we found upon our lee. | |
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| On the round waters wide, floated no thing beside, | |
| But we and the stranger sail; | |
| And a hazy sky, that threatened storm, | 40 |
| Came coating the heaven so blue and warm, | |
| And ahead hung the portent of a gale: | |
| A black bank hanging there | |
| When the order came, to wear, | |
| Was remembered, ever after, in the tale. | 45 |
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| Across the long, slow swell | |
| That scarcely rose and fell, | |
| The wind began to blow out of the cloud; | |
| And scarce an hour was gone ere the gale was fairly on, | |
| And through our strained rigging howled aloud. | 50 |
| Before the stormy wind, that was maddening behind, | |
| We gathered in our canvas farthest spread. | |
| Black clouds had started out | |
| From the heavens all about, | |
| And the welkin grew all black overhead. | 55 |
| But though stronger and more strong | |
| The fierce gale rushed along, | |
| The stranger brought her old wind in her breast. | |
| Up came the ship from the far-off sea | |
| And on with the strong wind’s breath rushed we. | 60 |
| She grew to the eye, against the clouded sky, | |
| And eagerly her points and gear we guessed. | |
| As we made her out, at last, | |
| She was maimed in spar and mast | |
| And she hugged the easy breeze for rest. | 65 |
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| We could see the old wind fail | |
| At the nearing of our gale; | |
| We could see them lay their course with the wind: | |
| Still we neared and neared her fast, | |
| Hurled on by our fierce blast, | 70 |
| With the seas tumbling headlong behind. | |
| She had come out of some storm, and, in many a busy swarm, | |
| Her crew were refitting, as they might, | |
| The wreck of upper spars | |
| That had left their ugly scars, | 75 |
| As if the ship had come out of a fight. | |
| We scanned her well, as we drifted by,— | |
| A strange old ship, with her poop built high, | |
| And with quarter-galleries wide, | |
| And a huge beaked prow, as no ships are builded now, | 80 |
| And carvings all strange, beside. | |
| A Byzantine bark, and a ship of name and mark | |
| Long years and generations ago; | |
| Ere any mast or yard of ours was growing hard | |
| With the seasoning of long Norwegian snow. | 85 |
| She was the brave old Orient, | |
| The old imperial Orient, | |
| Brought down from times afar, | |
| Not such as our ships are, | |
| But unchanged in hull and unchanged in spar, | 90 |
| Since mighty ships of war were builded so. | |
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| Down her old black side poured the water in a tide, | |
| As they toiled to get the better of a leak. | |
| We had got a signal set in the shrouds, | |
| And our men through the storm looked on in crowds:— | 95 |
| But for wind, we were near enough to speak. | |
| It seemed her sea and sky were in times long, long gone by, | |
| That we read in winter-evens about; | |
| As if to other stars | |
| She had reared her old-world spars, | 100 |
| And her hull had kept an old-time ocean out. | |
| We saw no signal fly, and her men scarce lifted eye, | |
| But toiled at the work that was to do: | |
| It warmed our English blood | |
| When across the stormy flood | 105 |
| We saw the old ship and her crew. | |
| The glories and the memories of other days agone | |
| Seemed clinging to the old ship, as in storm she labored on. | |
| The old ship Orient! | |
| The brave, imperial Orient! | 110 |
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| All that stormy night through, our ship was lying-to | |
| Whenever we could keep her to the wind; | |
| But late in the next day we gained a quiet bay, | |
| For the tempest had left us far behind. | |
| So before the sunny town | 115 |
| Went our anchors splashing down; | |
| Our sails we hung all out to the sun; | |
| While airs from off the steep | |
| Came playing at bo-peep | |
| With our canvas, hour by hour, in their fun. | 120 |
| We leaned on boom or rail with many a lazy tale | |
| Of the work of the storm that had died; | |
| And watched, with idle eyes, | |
| Our floats, like summer flies, | |
| Riding lazily about the ship’s side. | 125 |
| Suddenly they cried, from the other deck, | |
| That the Orient was gone to wreck! | |
| That her hull lay high on a broken shore, | |
| And the brave old ship would float no more. | |
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| But we heard a sadder tale, ere the night came on, | 130 |
| And a truer tale, of the ship that was gone. | |
| They had seen from the height, | |
| As she came from yester-night, | |
| While the storm had not gone by, and the sea was running high, | |
| A ship driving heavily to land; | 135 |
| A strange great ship (so she seemed to be | |
| While she tumbled and rolled on the far-off sea, | |
| And strange when she toiled, near at hand), | |
| But some ship of mark and fame, | |
| Though crippled, then, and lame, | 140 |
| And that must have been gallantly manned. | |
| So she came, driving fast; | |
| They could tell her men, at last; | |
| There were harbors down the coast on her lee; | |
| When, strangely, she broached to,— | 145 |
| Then, with her gallant crew, | |
| Went headlong down into the sea. | |
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| That was the Orient, | |
| The brave old Orient,— | |
| Such a ship as nevermore will be. | 150 |
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