Of the long tides of traffic. In my doubt
I turned and knocked upon an old inn-door,
Hard by, an ancient inn of mullioned panes,
And crazy beams and over-hanging eaves:
And, as I knocked, the slowly changing west
Seemed to change all the world with it and leave
Only that old inn steadfast and unchanged,
A rock in the rich-coloured tides of time.

And, suddenly, as a song that wholly escapes
Remembrance, at one note, wholly returns,
There, as I knocked, memory returned to me.
I knew it all-the little twisted street,
The rough wet cobbles gleaming, far away,
Like opals, where it ended on the sky;
And, overhead, the darkly smiling face
Of that old wizard inn; I knew by rote

The smooth sun-bubbles in the worn green paint
Upon the doors and shutters.

There was one

Myself had idly scratched away one dawn,

One mad May-dawn, three hundred years ago,

When out of the woods we came with hawthorn boughs
And found the doors locked, as they seemed to-night.
Three hundred years ago-nay, Time was dead!
No need to scan the sign-board any more
Where that white-breasted siren of the sea
Curled her moon-silvered tail among such rocks
As never in the merriest seaman's tale
Broke the blue-bliss of fabulous lagoons
Beyond the Spanish Main.

And, through the dream,

Even as I stood and listened, came a sound

Of clashing wine-cups: then a deep-voiced song

Made the old timbers of the Mermaid Inn
Shake as a galleon shakes in a gale of wind
When she rolls glorying through the Ocean-sea.

SONG

5

Marchaunt Adventurers, chanting at the windlass,

Early in the morning, we slipped from Plymouth Sound, All for Adventure in the great New Regions,

All for Eldorado and to sail the world around! Sing! the red of sun-rise ripples round the bows again. Marchaunt Adventurers, O sing, we're outward bound,

10 All to stuff the sunset in our old black galleon,

All to seek the merchandise that no man ever found.

Chorus:

Marchaunt Adventurers!

Marchaunt Adventurers!

Marchaunt Adventurers, O, whither are ye bound?—

15 All for Eldorado and the great new Sky-line,

20

All to seek the merchandise that no man ever found.

Marchaunt Adventurers, O, what'ull ye bring home again?— Wonders and works and the thunder of the sea!

Whom will ye traffic with?-The King of the Sunset!

What shall be your pilot then?-A wind from Galilee. Nay, but ye be marchaunts, will ye come back emptyhanded?

Ay, we be marchaunts, though our gain we ne'er shall see. Cast we now our bread upon the waste wild waters.

After many days, it shall return with usury.

25 Chorus:

Marchaunt Adventurers!

Marchaunt Adventurers!

What shall be your profit in the mighty days to be?— Englande! -Englande! -Englande! -Englande! Glory everlasting and the lordship of the sea!

And there, framed in the lilac patch of sky
That ended the steep street, dark on its light,
And standing on those glistering cobblestones
Just where they took the sunset's kiss, I saw
A figure like foot-feathered Mercury,
Tall, straight and splendid as a sunset-cloud.
Clad in a crimson doublet and trunk-hose,
A rapier at his side; and, as he paused,
His long fantastic shadow swayed and swept
Against my feet.

A moment he looked back,
Then swaggered down as if he owned a world
Which had forgotten-did I wake or dream?-
Even his gracious ghost!

Over his arm

He swung a gorgeous murrey-coloured cloak
Of Ciprus velvet, caked and smeared with mud
As on the day when-did I dream or wake?
And had not all this happened once before?-
When he had laid that cloak before the feet
Of Gloriana! By that mud-stained cloak,
'Twas he! Our Ocean-Shepherd! Walter Raleigh!
He brushed me passing, and with one vigorous thrust
Opened the door and entered. At his heels
I followed-into the Mermaid!-through three yards
Of pitch-black gloom, then into an old inn-parlour
Swimming with faces in a mist of smoke

That up-curled, blue, from long Winchester pipes,
While-like some rare old picture, in a dream
Recalled-quietly listening, laughing, watching,
Pale on that old black oaken wainscot floated
One bearded oval face, young, with deep eyes,
Whom Raleigh hailed as "Will!"

But as I stared

A sudden buffet from a brawny hand

Made all my senses swim, and the room rang

5

IO

15

20

25

30

5

IO

15

20

25

With laughter as upon the rush-strewn floor
My feet slipped and I fell. Then a gruff voice
Growled over me-"Get up now, John-a-dreams,
Or else mine host must find another drawer!
Hast thou not heard us calling all this while?"
And, as I scrambled up, the rafters rang
With cries of "Sack! Bring me a cup of sack!
Canary! Sack! Malmsey! and Muscadel!"
I understood and flew. I was awake,

A leather-jerkined pot-boy to these gods,
A prentice Ganymede to the Mermaid Inn!

PRINCETON1
(1917)

The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the first joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in the Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at Princeton.

Here Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe,
And, ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages: then, with eyes aglow,
Laid them, to wait that future, side by side.

Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
Through dog-wood red and white,

And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,
The windows fill with light,

Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower,
Twin lanthorns of the law,

And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower
The halls of old Nassau.

The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side
Where red-coats used to pass,

1 Reprinted, by permission, from The New Morning, by Alfred Noyes. Copyright, 1918, by Alfred Noyes.

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And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died
And violets dusk the grass,

By Stony Brook that ran so red of old,

But sings of friendship now,

To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold

The green earth takes the plough.

Through this May night if one great ghost should stray

With deep remembering eyes,

Where that old meadow of battle smiles away

Its blood-stained memories,

If Washington should walk, where friend and foe
Sleep and forget the past,

Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know
Their hosts are joined at last.

Be sure he walks, in shadowy buff and blue,

Where those dim lilacs wave,

He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true,

10

15

The promise of that grave,

Then with a vaster hope than thought can scan,

20

Touching his ancient sword,

Prays for that mightier realm of God in man,

"Hasten Thy Kingdom, Lord.

"Land of new hope, land of the singing stars,

Type of the world to be,