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And the rest they came aboard us, and

they fought us hand to hand, For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,

And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears 54 When he leaps from the water to the land.

IX

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of

the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame: Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew

back with her dead and her shame. 60 For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight no more— God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

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They hanged him in chains for a showwe had always borne a good name-35 To be hanged for a thief-and then put away-isn't that enough shame? Dust to dust-low down-let us hide! but they set him so high

That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by.

God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air,

But not the black heart of the lawyer who killed him and hanged him there. 40

IX

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid

him my last good-bye; They had fastened the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard him cry.

I couldn't get back though I tried, he had something further to say,

My Willy 'ill rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment 'ill sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground.

XIII

They would scratch him up-they would hang him again on the cursèd tree. Sin? O, yes, we are sinners, I know-let all that be,

бо And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's goodwill toward men—

"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord"-let me hear it again; "Full of compassion and mercy-longsuffering." Yes, O, yes!

For the lawyer is born but to murderthe Savior lives but to bless. He'll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst,

65

And now I never shall know it. The jailer And the first may be last-I have heard

forced me away.

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it in church-and the last may be first. Suffering O, long-suffering-yes, as the Lord must know,

Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow.

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Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that

you mean to be kind,

But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the wind

The snow and the sky so bright-he used but to call in the dark,

And he calls to me now from the church

and not from the gibbet-for hark! Nay-you can hear it yourself-it is coming-shaking the walls— 85 Willy-the moon 's in a cloud- -Goodnight. I am going. He calls.

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I have climbed to the snows of Age, and I gazed at a field in the Past,

Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low desire,

But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last

As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher. 20

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