A Watcher of the Moyle
Beyond the tide-rips of the shrieking sea,
Where, even without wind, the billows toss,
He saw the country where he longed to be...
Often he tried, but never sailed across;
And, being driven back, would watch again
Those distant mountains, sometimes specked with white
Where houses shone in clearness before rain;
And, in the darkness, stelled with beacon-light.
So fair those mountains seemed, he always yearned
To cross that streaking Moyle and step ashore
Among the men whose dwellings he discerned;
Fate, and the currents, checked him evermore.
Then, on a summer morning, Fate was kind,
The currents ceased their battle in the Mull,
His boat ran like a poem in the mind,
Happy in straining sail and lifting hull,
And, lo, the shore was reached, and on the sand
The strangers, come to welcome, with good cheer,
“Welcome,” they said; they took him by the hand,
“Come to the feast; we have a wedding here.”
All day, he shared those simple men’s delight.
He shewed them, from their home above the beach,
His home, across the sea, a speck of white,
Long since, to them, a wonder, out of reach.
He named to them each long-familiar mark
Seen from their shore; he saw those hills of theirs
As cattle-pasture, sung on by the lark,
Or tillage, fenced and coloured with men’s cares.
But, for the moment, care was set aside,
He was the Stranger, bringing Luck to all,
He danced with both the bridesmaids and the bride,
Gaily the day sped till the evenfall.
Then, as the sun drooped to the crooked peak,
And shadows lengthened and the wind was cold,
The Moyle wrinkled her talons and was bleak,
The wolves were on that passage back to fold.
Full Time it was, and more than Time, to start.
And now he knew, how beautiful a bond
Had that day linked them, heart to simple heart,
As friends until their death-day and beyond.
Some little gift he made, to bride and groom,
And thanked those stranger-friends, and said good-bye,
And hoisted sail, and stood into the gloom,
Towards the planet in a darkening sky.
Death and the Moyle are bars not set in vain.
He reached his home, but never till he died,
For all his sailing, won across again
To greet those people on the other side.
But till his death-day they were in his thought
(As he in theirs), as words ill-understood,
Or gleam, or tint, of truth in symbol taught,
To apprehend which, were beatitude.
Thus lit, in darling memory, by each,
The cherished image stayed, and now, who knows,
No Moyle of roaring sunders them from speech,
Nor is their friendship barred by wind that blows.
We like that watcher of the Moyle, have seen
A lovely world which we could never share;
The barrier of the footlights ran between;
We were in darkness, you in brightness there.
Often we longed to cross that sundering bar
To offer thanks; though what are thanks to you?
All the applause of all the lands that are
Thunders on your appearance as your due.
You helped us cross, and for a happy space
Admitted us to fellowship as friends.
We shall be glad and grateful of your grace
Until the curtains fall and memory ends.
John Masefield