Читать книгу The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems - John 1878-1967 Masefield - Страница 3

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DAUBER

I

Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck,

All work aboard was over for the hour,

And some men sang and others played at check,

Or mended clothes or watched the sunset glower.

The bursting west was like an opening flower,

And one man watched it till the light was dim,

But no one went across to talk to him.

He was the painter in that swift ship's crew,

Lampman and painter--tall, a slight-built man,

Young for his years, and not yet twenty-two;

Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan.

Bullied and damned at since the voyage

"Being neither man nor seaman by his tally,"

He bunked with the idlers just abaft the galley.

His work began at five; he worked all day,

Keeping no watch and having all night in.

His work was what the mate might care to say;

He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin;

His dungarees were smeared with paraffin.

"Go drown himself" his round-house mates advised him,

And all hands called him "Dauber" and despised him.

Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar,

Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side,

Slushing his hands to get away the tar,

And then he washed himself and rinsed and dried;

Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager eyed,

He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there stood

Watching the gold of heaven turn to blood.

They stood there by the rail while the swift ship

Tore on out of the tropics, straining her sheets,

Whitening her trackway to a milky strip,

Dim with green bubbles and twisted water meets,

Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and cleats,

Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts leaned:

They watched how the seas struck and burst and greened.

Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side.

"Why did you come to sea, painter?" he said.

"I want to be a painter," he replied,

"And know the sea and ships from A to Z,

And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead;

Ships under skysails running down the Trade--

Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer made.

"But there's so much to learn, with sails and ropes,

And how the sails look, full or being furled,

And how the lights change in the troughs and slopes,

And the sea's colours up and down the world,

And how a storm looks when the sprays are hurled

High as the yard (they say) I want to see;

There's none ashore can teach such things to me.

"And then the men and rigging, and the way

Ships move, running or beating, and the poise

At the roll's end, the checking in the sway--

I want to paint them perfect, short of the noise;

And then the life, the half-decks full of boys,

The fo'c'sles with the men there, dripping wet:

I know the subjects that I want to get.

"It's not been done, the sea, not yet been done,

From the inside, by one who really knows;

I'd give up all if I could be the one,

But art comes dear the way the money goes.

So I have come to sea, and I suppose

Three years will teach me all I want to learn

And make enough to keep me till I earn."

Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved,

Drawing the leap of water off the side

Where the great clipper trampled iron-hooved,

Making the blue hills of the sea divide,

Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride,

And leaping on full tilt with all sails drawing,

Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, pawing.

"I cannot get it yet--not yet," he said;

"That leap and light, and sudden change to green,

And all the glittering from the sunset's red,

And the milky colours where the bursts have been,

And then the clipper striding like a queen

Over it all, all beauty to the crown.

I see it all, I cannot put it down.

"It's hard not to be able. There, look there!

I cannot get the movement nor the light;

Sometimes it almost makes a man despair

To try and try and never get it right.

Oh, if I could--oh, if I only might,

I wouldn't mind what hells I'd have to pass,

Not if the whole world called me fool and ass."

Down sank the crimson sun into the sea,

The wind cut chill at once, the west grew dun.

"Out sidelights!" called the mate. "Hi, where is he?"

The Boatswain called, "Out sidelights, damn you! Run!"

"He's always late or lazing," murmured one--

"The Dauber, with his sketching." Soon the tints

Of red and green passed on dark water-glints.

Darker it grew, still darker, and the stars

Burned golden, and the fiery fishes came.

The wire-note loudened from the straining spars;

The sheet-blocks clacked together always the same;

The rushing fishes streaked the seas with flame,

Racing the one speed noble as their own:

What unknown joy was in those fish unknown!

Just by the round-house door, as it grew dark,

The Boatswain caught the Dauber with, "Now, you;

Till now I've spared you, damn you! now you hark:

I've just had hell for what you didn't do;

I'll have you broke and sent among the crew

If you get me more trouble by a particle.

Don't you forget, you daubing, useless article!

"You thing, you twice-laid thing from Port Mahon!"

Then came the Cook's "Is that the Dauber there?

Why don't you leave them stinking paints alone?

They stink the house out, poisoning all the air.

Just take them out." "Where to?" "I don't care where.

I won't have stinking paint here." From their plates:

"That's right; wet paint breeds fever," growled his mates.

He took his still wet drawings from the berth

And climbed the ladder to the deck-house top;

Beneath, the noisy half-deck rang with mirth,

For two ship's boys were putting on the strop:

One, clambering up to let the skylight drop,

Saw him bend down beneath a boat and lay

His drawings there, till all were hid away,

And stand there silent, leaning on the boat,

Watching the constellations rise and burn,

Until the beauty took him by the throat,

So stately is their glittering overturn;

Armies of marching eyes, armies that yearn

With banners rising and falling, and passing by

Over the empty silence of the sky.

The Dauber sighed there looking at the sails,

Wind-steadied arches leaning on the night,

The high trucks traced on heaven and left no trails;

The moonlight made the topsails almost white,

The passing sidelight seemed to drip green light.

And on the clipper rushed with fire-bright bows;

He sighed, "I'll never do't," and left the house.

"Now," said the reefer, "up! Come, Sam; come, Si,

Dauber's been hiding something." Up they slid,

Treading on naked tiptoe stealthily

To grope for treasure at the long-boat skid.

"Drawings!" said Sam. "Is this what Dauber hid?

Lord! I expected pudding, not this rot.

Still, come, we'll have some fun with what we've got."

They smeared the paint with turpentine until

They could remove with mess-clouts every trace

Of quick perception caught by patient skill,

And lines that had brought blood into his face.

They wiped the pigments off, and did erase,

With knives, all sticking clots. When they had done.

Under the boat they laid them every one.

All he had drawn since first he came to sea,

His six weeks' leisure fruits, they laid them there.

They chuckled then to think how mad he'd be

Finding his paintings vanished into air.

Eight bells were struck, and feet from everywhere

Went shuffling aft to muster in the dark;

The mate's pipe glowed above, a dim red spark.

Names in the darkness passed and voices cried;

The red spark glowed and died, the faces seemed

As things remembered when a brain has died,

To all but high intenseness deeply dreamed.

Like hissing spears the fishes' fire streamed,

And on the clipper rushed with tossing mast,

A bath of flame broke round her as she passed.

The watch was set, the night came, and the men

Hid from the moon in shadowed nooks to sleep,

Bunched like the dead; still, like the dead, as when

Plague in a city leaves none even to weep.

The ship's track brightened to a mile-broad sweep;

The mate there felt her pulse, and eyed the spars:

South-west by south she staggered under the stars.

Down in his bunk the Dauber lay awake

Thinking of his unfitness for the sea.

Each failure, each derision, each mistake,

There in the life not made for such as he;

A morning grim with trouble sure to be,

A noon of pain from failure, and a night

Bitter with men's contemning and despite.

This in the first beginning, the green leaf,

Still in the Trades before bad weather fell;

What harvest would he reap of hate and grief

When the loud Horn made every life a hell?

When the sick ship lay over, clanging her bell,

And no time came for painting or for drawing,

But all hands fought, and icy death came clawing?

Hell, he expected,--hell. His eyes grew blind;

The snoring from his messmates droned and snuffled,

And then a gush of pity calmed his mind.

The cruel torment of his thought was muffled,

Without, on deck, an old, old, seaman shuffled,

Humming his song, and through the open door

A moonbeam moved and thrust along the floor.

The green bunk curtains moved, the brass rings clicked,

The Cook cursed in his sleep, turning and turning,

The moonbeams' moving finger touched and picked,

And all the stars in all the sky were burning.

"This is the art I've come for, and am learning,

The sea and ships and men and travelling things.

It is most proud, whatever pain it brings."

He leaned upon his arm and watched the light

Sliding and fading to the steady roll;

This he would some day paint, the ship at night,

And sleeping seamen tired to the soul;

The space below the bunks as black as coal,

Gleams upon chests, upon the unlit lamp,

The ranging door hook, and the locker clamp.

This he would paint, and that, and all these scenes,

And proud ships carrying on, and men their minds,

And blues of rollers toppling into greens,

And shattering into white that bursts and blinds,

And scattering ships running erect like hinds,

And men in oilskins beating down a sail

High on the yellow yard, in snow, in hail.

With faces ducked down from the slanting drive

Of half-thawed hail mixed with half-frozen spray,

The roaring canvas like a thing alive,

Shaking the mast, knocking their hands away,

The foot-ropes jerking to the tug and sway,

The savage eyes salt-reddened at the rims,

And icicles on the south-wester brims.

And sunnier scenes would grow under his brush,

The tropic dawn with all things dropping dew,

The darkness and the wonder and the hush,

The insensate grey before the marvel grew;

Then the veil lifted from the trembling blue,

The walls of sky burst in, the flower, the rose,

All the expanse of heaven a mind that glows.

He turned out of his bunk; the Cook still tossed,

One of the other two spoke in his sleep.

A cockroach scuttled where the moonbeam crossed;

Outside there was the ship, the night, the deep.

"It is worth while," the youth said; "I will keep

To my resolve, I'll learn to paint all this.

My Lord, my God, how beautiful it is!"

Outside was the ship's rush to the wind's hurry,

A resonant wire-hum from every rope,

The broadening bow-wash in a fiery flurry,

The leaning masts in their majestic slope,

And all things strange with moonlight: filled with hope

By all that beauty going as man bade,

He turned and slept in peace. Eight bells were made.

II

Next day was Sunday, his free painting day,

While the fine weather held, from eight till eight.

He rose when called at five, and did array

The round-house gear, and set the kit-bags straight;

Then kneeling down, like housemaid at a grate,

He scrubbed the deck with sand until his knees

Were blue with dye from his wet dungarees.

Soon all was clean, his Sunday tasks were done;

His day was clear for painting as he chose.

The wetted decks were drying in the sun,

The men coiled up, or swabbed, or sought repose.

The drifts of silver arrows fell and rose

As flying fish took wing; the breakfast passed,

Wasting good time, but he was free at last.

Free for two hours and more to tingle deep,

Catching a likeness in a line or tint,

The canvas running up in a proud sweep,

Wind-wrinkled at the clews, and white like lint,

The glittering of the blue waves into glint;

Free to attempt it all, the proud ship's pawings,

The sea, the sky--he went to fetch his drawings.

Up to the deck-house top he quickly climbed,

He stooped to find them underneath the boat.

He found them all obliterated, slimed,

Blotted, erased, gone from him line and note.

They were all spoiled: a lump came in his throat,

Being vain of his attempts, and tender skinned--

Beneath the skylight watching reefers grinned.

He clambered down, holding the ruined things.

"Bosun," he called, "look here, did you do these:

Wipe off my paints and cut them into strings,

And smear them till you can't tell chalk from cheese?

Don't stare, but did you do it? Answer, please."

The Bosun turned: "I'll give you a thick ear!

Do it? I didn't. Get to hell from here!

"I touch your stinking daubs? The Dauber's daft."

A crowd was gathering now to hear the fun;

The reefers tumbled out, the men laid aft,

The Cook blinked, cleaning a mess kid in the sun.

"What's up with Dauber now?" said everyone.

"Someone has spoiled my drawings--look at this!"

"Well, that's a dirty trick, by God, it is!"

"It is," said Sam, "a low-down dirty trick,

To spoil a fellow's work in such a way,

And if you catch him, Dauber, punch him sick,

For he deserves it, be he who he may."

A seaman shook his old head wise and grey.

"It seems to me," he said, "who ain't no judge,

Them drawings look much better now they're smudge."

"Where were they, Dauber? On the deck-house? Where?"

"Under the long-boat, in a secret place."

"The blackguard must have seen you put them there.

He is a swine! I tell him to his face:

I didn't think we'd anyone so base."

"Nor I," said Dauber. "There was six weeks' time

Just wasted in these drawings: it's a crime!"

"Well, don't you say we did it," growled his mates,

"And as for crime, be damned! the things were smears--

Best overboard, like you, with shot for weights;

Thank God they're gone, and now go shake your ears."

The Dauber listened, very near to tears.

"Dauber, if I were you," said Sam again,

"I'd aft, and see the Captain and complain."

A sigh came from the assembled seamen there.

Would he be such a fool for their delight

As go to tell the Captain? Would he dare?

And would the thunder roar, the lightning smite?

There was the Captain come to take a sight,

Handling his sextant by the chart-house aft.

The Dauber turned, the seamen thought him daft.

The Captain took his sights--a mate below

Noted the times; they shouted to each other,

The Captain quick with "Stop," the answer slow,

Repeating slowly one height then another.

The swooping clipper stumbled through the smother,

The ladder brasses in the sunlight burned,

The Dauber waited till the Captain turned.