"As Beseemeth Men"

We heard her a mile to west'ard--the liner that cut us through--
As crushing the fog at a twenty-jog she drove with her double screw.
We heard her a mile to west'ard as she bellowed to clear her path,
The grum, grim grunt of her whistle, a leviathan's growl of wrath.
We could tell she was aimed to smash us, so we clashed at our little bell,
But the sound was shredded by screaming wind and we simply rung our knell.
And the feeble breath, that screamed at Death through our horn, was beaten back,
And we knew that doom rode up the sea toward the shell of our tossing smack.
Then out of the fog she thundered, the liner, smashing to east;
Her green and her red glared overhead and her bows were spouting yeast.
The eyes of her reddened hawse-holes, her dripping and towering flanks,
Flashed with no gleam of mercy for her quarry on the Banks.
She scornfully spurned us under, the while her whistle brayed,
Nor heeded the crash of our little craft nor the feeble chirp we made;
And as down we swept, her folk that slept-- they slumbered serenely still,
And even the lookout on the bridge scarce felt the thud and thrill.
But they jangled her bells and halted; and the sullen sea they swept
With the goggling gleam of the searchlight's beam. A dozen of us had crept
On the mass of the tangled wreckage she contemptuously had tossed
A mile astern in the chop and churn. The others were drowned--were lost!
There was never a whine nor whimper, only some muttered groans,
As the ocean buffeted martyrs who clung there with shattered bones,
And those whose grip was broken as the surge reeled creaming high,
Went out from the ken of the searchlight with a hoarse but brave "Good-by."
In the great white light no sign of fright stole wrinkling o'er a face,
For the men of the Banks know How to die when Davy trumps their ace.
And better than simply dying--they can cheerfully, bravely give
Life, heart, and head in a comrade's stead if they deem that he ought to live.
For there in the searchlight's glory, the night that they cut us down,
Old Injun Joe gave up his cask that another might not drown.
Old Joe was a lone world-rover, the other had babes on land;
No word was said, but Joe went down with a wave of his dripping hand.
And ere the lifeboats reached us and gathered our scattered few,
We saw that night what so long we'd known, that a Glo'ster fishing crew,
Rude and rough and grimed and gruff, had calmly shown again
That on sea or sod they can meet their God in the way that beseemeth men!
Then over her sullen bulwarks, as she stamped and chafed and rolled,
From the night and wreck to her dazzling deck climbed we--and our tale was told.
And the dainty folk from her staterooms listened and gazed and said,
As they tiptoed across our dripping trail,
"How awful!"--then went to bed.
And our half-score left, of all bereft--comrades and gear and smack--
Sat hoping our wreck would tell no tales till our scattered few came back.
And haughtily unrepentant, the liner, insolent still,
Through foam and spume and fog and gloom drove on to wreak her will.
Were only her zeal less eager, her lust for her prey less keen,
She must have sensed that horrid chill that shuddered from One Unseen.
But onward she plunged unheeding that there in the vast, black sea,
As grim as Fate there lay in wait One mightier than she.
A ghost in white before her--the fog its sombre pall--
And she crushed herself like dead-ripe fruit against the iceberg's wall.
Then up from her perfumed cabins came pouring the rich and proud,
And I--poor Glo'ster fisher--I blushed for that maddened crowd.
There were men in silken night-gear who fought frail women back,
There were pampered fools who, fierce as ghouls, left murder in their track;
There were shrieking men whose jeweled hands dragged children from a boat
And rode away in the babies' stead when the life-craft went afloat.
'Tis not for boast that I tell the rest: we're not of the boasting kind--
We folks that sail from Glo'ster town; but you know you'll sometimes find
A man who sneers at a tattered coat or a sunburned fist or face,
And believes that only blood or purse can honor the human race.
Forlorn and few, our battered crew had stared at Death that night;
Perhaps we'd known him so long and well his mien did not affright.
Perhaps we hide here in our hearts, below the rags and tan,
The honest stuff, unplaned and rough, that really makes the man.
For we bared our arms and we stormed the press--of safety took no care;
We dragged those wretches from the boats-- then placed the women there.
No time had we for the courtly "Please!" If a poltroon answered "No,"
We gave him the thing that a man reserves for the coward's case--a blow.
It isn't a boast, I say again; but we stayed till all had passed,
Then the ragged coats of those Glo'ster men went over her lee rail last.
And three of the few of our scattered crew, who had twice dared Fate that night,
Went down in the rush of the whirlpool's tow when the liner swooped from sight.
We ask no praise, we seek no heights above our chosen place,
But the men of the Banks know how to die when Davy trumps their ace.
And if need arise for a sacrifice we've shown, and we'll show again,
That on sea or sod we can meet our God in the way that beseemeth men.