THE DESTROYERS

Hit, and hard hit! The blow went home,

The muffled, knocking stroke

The steam that overruns the foam

The foam that thins to smoke

The smoke that cloaks the deep aboil-
The deep that chokes her throes

Till, streaked with ash and sleeked with oil,
The lukewarm whirlpools close!

A shadow down the sickened wave
Long since her slayer fled:

But hear their chattering quick-fires rave
Astern, abeam, ahead!

Panic that shells the drifting spar

Loud waste with none to check

Mad fear that rakes a scornful star
Or sweeps a consort's deck!

Now, while their silly smoke hangs thick,
Now ere their wits they find,

Lay in and lance them to the quick-
Our gallied whales are blind!

Good luck to those that see the end,

Good-bye to those that drown

For each his chance as chance shall send-
Shut down!

And God for all!

篇

THE DESTROYERS

The strength of twice three thousand horse That serve the one command;

The hand that heaves the headlong force,

The hate that backs the hand: The doom-bolt in the darkness freed,

The mine that splits the main ;

The white-hot wake, the 'wildering speed— The Choosers of the Slain!

WHITE HORSES

Where run your colts at pasture?
Where hide your mares to breed?
'Mid bergs about the Ice-cap
Or wove Sargasso weed;
By chartless reef and channel,
Or crafty coastwise bars,
But most the ocean-meadows

All purple to the stars!

Who holds the rein upon you?

The latest gale let free.
What meat is in your mangers?

The glut of all the sea.
'Twixt tide and tide's returning

Great store of newly dead,

The bones of those that faced us,

And the hearts of those that fled.

WHITE HORSES

Afar, offshore and single,

Some stallion, rearing swift, Neighs hungry for new fodder, And calls us to the drift.

Then down the cloven ridges

A million hooves unshod

Break forth the mad White Horses

To seek their meat from God!

Girth-deep in hissing water

Our furious vanguard strains—
Through mist of mighty tramplings
Roll up the fore-blown manes-
A hundred leagues to leeward,
Ere yet the deep is stirred,
The groaning rollers carry

The coming of the herd!

Whose hand may grip your nostrils—
Your forelock who may hold?
E'en they that use the broads with us
The riders bred and bold,

That spy upon our matings,

That rope us where we run

They know the strong White Horses

From father unto son.

WHITE HORSES

We breathe about their cradles,
We race their babes ashore,
We snuff against their thresholds,
We nuzzle at their door;
By day with stamping squadrons,
By night in whinnying droves,
Creep up the wise White Horses,
To call them from their loves.

And come they for your calling?
No wit of man may save.
They hear the loosed White Horses
Above their father's grave;

And, kin of those we crippled,

And, sons of those we slew, Spur down the wild white riders To school the herds anew.

What service have ye paid them,
Oh jealous steeds and strong?
Save we that throw their weaklings,
Is none dare work them wrong;
While thick around the homestead

Our snow-backed leaders graze

A guard behind their plunder,
And a veil before their ways.