第22章 HOMEWARD BOUND(1)

I have seen a fiercer tempest,Known a louder whirlwind blow;I was wrecked off red Algiers,Six-and-thirty years ago.

Young I was,and yet old seamen Were not strong or calm as I;While life held such treasures for me,I felt sure I could not die.

Life I struggled for--and saved it;

Life alone--and nothing more;

Bruised,half dead,alone and helpless,I was cast upon the shore.

I feared the pitiless rocks of Ocean;

So the great sea rose--and then Cast me from her friendly bosom,On the pitiless hearts of men.

Gaunt and dreary ran the mountains,With black gorges,up the land;Up to where the lonely Desert Spreads her burning,dreary sand:

In the gorges of the mountains,On the plain beside the sea,Dwelt my stern and cruel masters,The black Moors of Barbary.

Ten long years I toiled among them,Hopeless--as I used to say;Now I know Hope burnt within me Fiercer,stronger,day by day:

Those dim years of toil and sorrow Like one long dark dream appear;One long day of weary waiting -

Then each day was like a year.

How I cursed the land--my prison;

How I cursed the serpent sea -

And the Demon Fate that showered All her curses upon me;I was mad,I think--God pardon Words so terrible and wild -This voyage would have been my last one,For I left a wife and child.

Never did one tender vision Fade away before my sight,Never once through all my slavery,Burning day or dreary night;In my soul it lived,and kept me,Now I feel,from black despair,And my heart was not quite broken,While they lived and blest me there.

When at night my task was over,I would hasten to the shore;(All was strange and foreign inland,Nothing I had known before;)Strange looked the bleak mountain passes,Strange the red glare and black shade,And the Oleanders,waving To the sound the fountains made.

Then I gazed at the great Ocean,Till she grew a friend again;And because she knew old England,I forgave her all my pain:

So the blue still sky above me,With its white clouds'fleecy fold,And the glimmering stars,(though brighter,)Looked like home and days of old.

And a calm would fall upon me,Worn perhaps with work and pain,The wild hungry longing left me,And I was myself again:

Looking at the silver waters,Looking up at the far sky,Dreams of home and all I left there Floated sorrowfully by.

A fair face,but pale with sorrow,With blue eyes,brimful of tears,And the little red mouth,quivering With a smile,to hide its fears;Holding out her baby towards me,From the sky she looked on me;So it was that last I saw her,As the ship put out to sea.

Sometimes,(and a pang would seize me That the years were floating on,)I would strive to paint her,altered,And the little baby gone:

She no longer young and girlish,The child,standing by her knee,And her face,more pale and saddened With the weariness for me.

Then I saw,as night grew darker.

How she taught my child to pray,Holding its small hands together,For its father,far away;And I felt her sorrow,weighing Heavier on me than my own;Pitying her blighted spring-time,And her joy so early flown.

Till upon my hands (now hardened With the rough,harsh toil of years)Bitter drops of anguish falling,Woke me from my dream,to tears;Woke me as a slave,an outcast.

Leagues from home,across the deep;

So--though you may call it childish -

So I sobbed myself to sleep.

Well,the years sped on--my Sorrow,Calmer,and yet stronger grown,Was my shield against all suffering,Poorer,meaner,than her own.

Thus my cruel master's harshness Fell upon me all in vain,Yet the tale of what we suffered Echoed back from main to main.