“I would claim
A place among that knighthood of the sea.”
Henry Van Dyke “Hudson’s Last Voyage.”
Follow the shallow spring, the babbling brook,
And watch the gentle trickle, slithering past
The ancient elms and oaks, begin to grow
As streams pay tribute one by one until the creek
Becomes impatient, seething and whirling down
The mountain’s side. Onward it goes, growing mad
And swelling and surging onward down the slopes.
Within this maddening flood, a war is waged
Among the waves as each, with ardent hopes
Of arriving first on the golden beach, contends
With each and every wave – a mad dash, a race.
Follow, if you dare, these falling crests.
They leap and bound in their bacchanal dance,
Their fits of fury, frenzied waltzes, whirling streams.
Follow, if you dare, the crowning caps
That spring o’er boulders like the hunted hart
Who hurdles brush and bush when howling hounds
Attempt to close and thwart her fated flight.
Follow, if you dare, these waters that feed
Not lakes and ponds, but Neptune’s realm,
The opulent ocean and the surging seas.
Follow it and do not dare to turn away
Until you’ve seen the shore, the craggy cliffs
That jut out of the ancient face of stone.
Recline among the rugged rocks and hear
The wisdom rumored through the raucous winds,
Repeated on the shore with each new wave
That crashes on the toothéd stone. Hear the echo
Of days departed. Hear the sounds of sons
Exclaiming words of love above the roar—
The thundering boom—of waves, to breathless maids,
Who hang upon each stuttered, stammered word.
Attend the words—no longer spoken loud—
Of love, and see the ruby lips of her,
The lady of his heart, hold the world
In silence with her smile. And watch her face
Compete with roses as her maiden blush
Informs the gulls of what her heart has heard.
Hear as mothers call their children home
From play; the laughing songs of children’s games,
Transported by the wind, that calms the hearts
Which hurts and aches made heavy in their grief.
And hearken to the sound that cuts the dusk
As fathers stroll their homeward course—the airs
Which fathers sing, of love and life, the chimes
Of happy hearths, of merry maids and wives.
And hear the jingles ring within the streets
And hear the cheerful feet that scurry out
To meet the sires coming home with fish
And catch and plenty. Hear the sounds of joy,
The harmony of happy homes, now lost.
Hear these sounds remembered only by the wind;
Unearth in them a momentary peace
Away from present pains, and drink these draughts
Fermented well within the crypt of Time.
The breezes here still moan for ancient days—
Days dead and gone—blown like autumn leaves.
They live, they die, they are no more. The tomes
Of history—even those—do not contain this past.
But like a wave once spread upon the shore,
Whose force is spent, will slink back to the sea,
Is lost from sight forever, So too the tales,
The ancient legends, once their virtue’s gone,
Must tiptoe into the annals of a time
Unknown, to be forgotten by the world.
This is the world of Blackburn Tavern: lost.
It lies beside the sea, forgotten but for scars
Of tides, of yesteryear. Here beer once flowed
Like rivers leaping to the sea and sailors told
The mysteries of the deep in ghostly tones
As only sailors can. Here one among the best,
A legend in his time, a myth among his own,
Still sits, his pipe within his mouth as he
Plays host to seamen souls. And Blackburn is
His name, the keeper of the inn, who fills
The flowing bowls with beer, and ears with tales
Of days upon the sea, how he once sailed
Off Newfoundland’s fjord for fish and went
Adrift upon the artic waves, how he…
And here he stops and drums his finger-stumps
Upon the counter made from oak as he
Within his soul recalls the frightful days
He spent with his dead dory mate. But then
His tale he tells, and tears at times infest
His eyes.
