When suddenly a laugh broke through the spell; It was so near Our pulses lapsed a heart-beat, Struck with fear. The curtains of the fog were blown apart; Stark in the sallow moonlight's metal day, The white decks of a Yankee frigate lay. I saw the glint of moonlight on her bell; She was not twenty fathoms length away. A man's face leaped out in the cherry glow Of match flame in the hands he cupped About the pipe whose curling wreaths he supped. "Clang!" like a fireman's gong Our engine signals rang; The paddles thrashed into a frothy song; Five ship's lengths we had forged along Before their bugles sang. We had ten long lengths on them Before their ship began to swerve. The rabid screw was frothing at her stern; But I could feel the verve Of our blithe timbers tremble; every nerve Of our good race-horse ship For open water seemed to yearn. That was a Titan's race; The answering rockets snaked it down the coast, Dying like scarlet worms Among the fog-wreaths; but we gained, And when her flaming cannon stabbed the mist They thundered at our ghost. So we were gone, With cotton in our furnace, Once the aft-stacks flared, And then we plied pitch-pine Dampened with turpentine, Until the black sea glared-- But we had gone-- Over the world's round shoulder Thrust the dawn, Their ugly, black masts dipping it hull down. Three days the paddles beat while we drove on! And I had won; For on the fourth day as I sat In the black coffin-shadow of a boat, The burning decks a-wash with lime-white sun, I saw the graybeard lookout swell his throat And utter forth a glad and bronze hurrah, "_Land Ho_!" he cried-- We lined the windward side To cheer the washing palm tops of Nassau. H.A. [11] See the note on the chimes at back of book. BEYOND DEBATE Out from the wrought-iron gate Miss Perdee drives in state; Miss Perdee wears the thin smile And the sleeves of 1888. Miss Perdee's face is stifled as a sonnet; Upon her wire-tight hair a duck-shaped bonnet Nests, nodding with a _cachepeigne_ Of violets on it. East Bay, some tea and talk, them home by King. The horses have an antiquated plod; The team is old, but not too old to balk If driven north of Broad. Miss Perdee wears the sure air of a queen, Which only queens and Perdees can achieve. The Perdees had blue blood in Adam's veins When Adam had the rib he gave to Eve. Back through the wrought-iron gate Miss Perdee drives in state. Miss Perdee lives down on the Battery! Beyond debate. H.A. MARSH TACKIES[12]