Part I, Madoc in Wales: IV

Not with a heart unmoved I left thy shores,
Dear native isle! oh... not without a pang,
As thy fair uplands lessened on the view,
Cast back the long involuntary look !
The morning cheered our outset ; gentle airs
Curled the blue deep, and bright the summer sun
Played o'er the summer ocean, when our barks
Began their way.

And they were gallant barks,
As ever through the raging billows rode!
And many a tempest's buffeting they bore.
Their sails all swelling with the eastern breeze,
Their tightened cordage clattering to the mast,
Steady they rode the main ; the gale aloft
Sung in the shrouds, the sparkling waters hissed
Before, and frothed, and whitened far behind.
Day after day, with one auspicious wind,
Right to the setting sun we held our way.
My hope had kindled every heart ; they blest
The unvarying breeze, whose unabating strength
Still sped us onward ; and they said that heaven
Favoured the bold emprize.

How many a time,
Mounting the mast-tower-top, with eager ken
They gazed, and fancied, in the distant sky,
Their promised shore beneath the evening cloud,
Or seen, low lying, through the haze of morn.
I, too, with eyes as anxious, watched the waves,
Though patient, and prepared for long delay ;
For not on wild adventure had I rushed,
With giddy speed, in some delirious fit
Of fancy; but, in many a tranquil hour,
Weighed well the attempt, till hope matured to faith.
Day after day, day after day, the same,..
A weary waste of waters! still the breeze
Hung heavy in our sails, and we held on
One even course ; a second week was gone,
And now another past, and still the same,
Waves beyond waves, the interminable sea !
What marvel, if at length the mariners
Grew sick with long expectance? I beheld
Dark looks of growing restlessness, I heard
Distrust's low murmuring ; nor availed it long
To see and not perceive. Shame had awhile
Represt their fear, till, like a smothered fire,
It burst, and spread with quick contagion round,
And strengthened as it spread. They spake in tones
Which might not be mistaken ; . . they had done
What men dared do, ventured where never keel
Had cut the deep before ; still all was sea,
The same unbounded ocean ! . . to proceed
Were tempting heaven.

I heard, with feigned surprise,
And, pointing then to where our fellow bark,
Gay with her fluttering streamers and full sails,
Rode, as in triumph, o'er the element,
I asked them what their comrades there would deem
Of those so bold ashore, who, when a day,
Perchance an hour, might crown their glorious toil,
Shrunk then, and, coward-like, returned to meet
Mockery and shame ? true, they had ventured on
In seas unknown, beyond where ever man
Had ploughed the billows yet: more reason so
Why they should now, like him whose happy speed
Well nigh hath run the race, with higher hope
Press onward to the prize. But late they said,
Marking the favour of the steady gale,
That heaven was with us; heaven vouchsafed us still
Fair seas and favouring skies ; nor need we pray
For other aid, the rest was in ourselves ;
Nature had given it, when she gave to man
Courage and constancy.

They answered not,
Awhile obedient ; but I saw, with dread,
The silent sullenness of cold assent.
Then, with what fearful eagerness I gazed,
At earliest daybreak, o'er the distant deep !
How sick at heart with hope, when evening closed,
Gazed through the gathering shadows ! . . but I saw
The sun still sink below the endless waves,
And still at morn, beneath the farthest sky,
Unbounded ocean heaved. Day after day,
Before the steady gale we drove along, ..
Day after day ! The fourth week now had past ;
Still all around was sea, .. the eternal sea !
So long that we had voyaged on so fast,
And still at morning where we were at night,
And where we were at morn, at nightfall still,
The centre of that drear circumference,
Progressive, yet no change! . . almost it seemed
That we had past the mortal bounds of space,
And speed was toiling in infinity.
My days were days of fear, my hours of rest
Were like a tyrant's slumber. Sullen looks,
Eyes turned on me, and whispers meant to meet
My ear, and loud despondency, and talk
Of home, now never to be seen again, ..
I suffered these, dissembling as I could,
Till that availed no longer. Resolute,
The men came round me: .. They had shewn enough
Of courage now, enough of constancy ;
Still to pursue the desperate enterprize
Were impious madness! they had deemed, indeed,
That heaven in favour gave the unchanging gale;..
More reason now to think offended God,
When man's presumptuous folly strove to pass
The fated limits of the world, had sent
The winds, to waft us to the death we sought.
Their lives were dear, they bade me know, and they
Many, and I, the obstinate, but one.
With that, attending no reply, they hailed
Our fellow bark, and told their fixed resolve.
A shout of joy approved. Thus, desperate now,
I sought my solitary cabin ; there,
Confused with vague tumultuous feelings, lay,
And, to remembrance and reflection lost,
Knew only I was wretched.

Thus entranced,
Cadwallon found me; shame, and grief, and pride,
And baffled hope, and fruitless anger swelled
Within me. All is over! I exclaimed ;
Yet not in me, my friend, hath time produced
These tardy doubts and shameful fickleness.
I have not failed, Cadwallon! Nay, he cried,
The coward fears which persecuted me
Have shown what thou hast suffered. We have yet
One hope. ..I prayed them to proceed a day, ..
But one day more ;.. this little have I gained,
And here will wait the issue ; in yon bark
I am not needed, .. they are masters there.
One only day !.. The gale blew strong, the bark
Sped through the waters ; but the silent hours,
That make no pause, went by, and, centered still,
We saw the dreary vacancy of heaven
Close round our narrow view, when that brief term,
The last poor respite of our hopes, expired.
Oh how my proud heart struggled ! . . His calm eye
Read, and reproved, and pitied me. Said he,
Repress these rebel feelings, which prevent
The earthly meed of virtue
self-applause
Is all she finds below, . . that high reward,
Madoc, our souls, advanced beyond their age,
May yet enjoy. We heard them shorten sail
Even while he spake, and call, with coward prayer,
For homeward winds. Why, what poor slaves are we !
In bitterness I cried; the abject sport
Of chance ! . . even on an enterprise like this,
Left to the mercy of the elements,
Or the more wayward will of such as these,
Blind tools and victims of their destiny !

Yea, Madoc ! he replied, the elements
Master, indeed, the feeble powers of man!
Not to the shores of Cambria will thy ships
Win back their shameful way !..or He, whose will
Unchains the winds, hath bade them minister
To aid us, when all human hope was gone,
Or we shall soon eternally repose
From life's long voyage.

As he spake, I saw
The clouds hang thick and heavy o'er the deep;
And heavily, upon the long slow swell,
The vessel laboured on the labouring sea.
The reef-points rattled on the shivering sail,
At fits, the sudden gust howled ominous,
Anon, with unremitting fury raged ;
High rolled the mighty billows, and the blast
Swept from their sheeted sides the showery foam.
Vain, now, were all the seamen's homeward hopes,
Vain all their skill! .. we drove before the storm.
'Tis pleasant, by the chearful hearth, to hear
Of tempests, and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe ;
Then listen to the perilous tale again,
And, with an eager and suspended soul,
Woo Terror to delight us;.. but to hear
The roaring of the raging elements,
To know all human skill, all human strength,
Avail not; to look round, and only see
The mountain wave incumbent, with its weight
Of bursting waters, o'er the reeling bark, ...
O God, this is indeed a dreadful thing !
And he who hath endured the horror, once,
Of such an hour, doth never hear the storm
Howl round his home, but he remembers it,
And thinks upon the suffering mariner !

Onward we drove: with unabating force
The tempest raged, night added to the storm
New horrors, and the morn arose, o'erspread
With heavier clouds. The weary mariners
Called on Saint Cyric's aid, and I, too, placed
My hope on heaven, relaxing not the while
Our human efforts. Ye, who dwell at home,
Ye do not know the terrors of the main!
When the winds blow, ye walk along the shore,
And, as the curling billows leap and toss,
Fable that Ocean's mermaid Shepherdess
Drives her white flocks afield, and warns in time
The wary fisherman. Gwenhidwy warned us
When we had no retreat! my secret heart
Almost had failed me. .. Were the Elements
Confounded in perpetual conflict here,
Sea, Air, and Heaven? Or were we perishing
Where at their source the Floods, for ever thus,
Beneath the nearer influence of the Moon,
Laboured in these mad workings ? Did the Waters
Here in their outmost circle meet the Void,
The verge and brink of Chaos ? or this Earth, ..
Was it indeed a living thing, .. its breath
The ebb and flow of Ocean ? and had we
Reached the storm-rampart of its Sanctuary,
The insuperable boundary, raised to guard
Its mysteries from the eye of man profane ?

Three dreadful nights and days we drove along ;
The fourth, the welcome rain came rattling down:
The wind had fallen, and through the broken cloud
Appeared the bright dilating blue of heaven.
Emboldened now, I called the mariners: ..
Vain were it, should we bend a homeward course,
Driven by the storm so far: they saw our barks,
For service of that long and perilous way,
Disabled, and our food belike to fail.
Silent they heard, reluctant in assent ;
Anon, they shouted joyfully, . . I looked,
And saw a bird slow sailing overhead,
His long white pinions by the sunbeam edged,
As though with burnished silver ;.. never yet
Heard I so sweet a music as his cry!

Yet three days more, and hope more eager now,
Sure of the signs of land, . . weed-shoals, and birds
Who flocked the main, and gentle airs, that breathed,
Or seemed to breathe, fresh fragrance from the shore.
On the last evening, a long shadowy line
Skirted the sea; .. how fast the night closed in!
I stood upon the deck, and watched till dawn.
But who can tell what feelings filled my heart,
When, like a cloud, the distant land arose
Grey from the ocean, .. when we left the ship,
And cleft, with rapid oars, the shallow wave,
And stood triumphant on another world !