The Ship in the Desert

John Stuart Mill · en
The blackest rain-clouds muffle fire:
    Between a duty and desire
    There lies no middle way or land:
    Take thou the right or the left hand,
    And so pursue, nor hesitate
    To boldly give your hand to fate.

      In helpless indecisions lie
    The rocks on which we strike and die.
    'Twere better far to choose the worst
    Of all life's ways than to be cursed
    With indecision. Turn and choose
    Your way, then all the world refuse.

      And men who saw her still do say
    That never once her lips were heard,
    By gloaming dusk or shining day,
    To utter or pronounce one word.
    Men went and came, and still she stood
    In silence watching down the wood.

      Yea, still she stood and look'd away,
    By tawny night, by fair-fac'd day,
    Adown the wood beyond the land,
    Her hollow face upon her hand,
    Her black, abundant hair all down
    About her loose, ungather'd gown.

      And what her thought? her life unsaid?
    Was it of love? of hate? of him,
    The tall, dark Southerner?
                              Her head
    Bow'd down. The day fell dim
    Upon her eyes. She bow'd, she slept.
    She waken'd then, and waking wept.

      She dream'd, perchance, of island home,
    A land of palms ring'd round with foam,
    Where summer on her shelly shore
    Sits down and rests for evermore.

      And one who watch'd her wasted youth
    Did guess, mayhap with much of truth,
    Her heart was with that band that came
    Against her isle with sword and flame:
    And this the tale he told of her
    And her fierce, silent follower:

      A Spaniard and adventurer,
    A man who saw her, loved, and fell
    Upon his knees and worshipp'd her;
    And with that fervor and mad zeal
    That only sunborn bosoms feel,
    Did vow to love, to follow her
    Unto the altar ... or to hell:

      That then her gray-hair'd father bore
    The beauteous maiden hurriedly
    From out her fair isle of the sea
    To sombre wold and woody shore
    And far away, and kept her well,
    As from a habitant of hell,
    And vow'd she should not meet him more:
    That fearing still the buccaneer,
    He silent kept his forests here.
    The while men came, and still she stood
    For ever watching from the wood.




X.


      The black-eyed bushy squirrels ran
    Like shadows shatter'd through the boughs;
    The gallant robin chirp'd his vows,
    The far-off pheasant thrumm'd his fan,
    A thousand blackbirds were a-wing
    In walnut-top, and it was spring.

      Old Morgan left his cabin door,
    And one sat watching as of yore;
    But why turned Morgan's face as white
    As his white beard?
                           A bird aflight,
    A squirrel peering through the trees,
    Saw some one silent steal away
    Like darkness from the face of day,
    Saw two black eyes look back, and these
    Saw her hand beckon through the trees.