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THE WRECK
OF THE DEUTSCHLAND

          To the
happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns
   exiles by the Falk Laws
drowned between midnight and morning of
     Dec. 7th. 1875

PART THE FIRST

1
               Thou mastering me
          God! giver of breath and bread;
     World's strand, sway of the sea;
          Lord of living and dead;
   Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
   And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
     Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

2
               I did say yes
          O at lightning and lashed rod;
     Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
          Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
   Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:
   The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod
     Hard down with a horror of height:
And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.

3
               The frown of his face
          Before me, the hurtle of hell
     Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
          I whirled out wings that spell
   And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
   My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
     Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace
     to the grace.

4
               I am soft sift
          In an hourglass—at the wall
     Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,
          And it crowds and it combs to the fall;
   I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,
   But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall
     Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein
Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ's gift.

5
               I kiss my hand
          To the stars, lovely-asunder
     Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
          Glow, glory in thunder;
   Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:
   Since, tho' he is under the world's splendour and wonder,
     His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.

6
               Not out of his bliss
          Springs the stress felt
     Nor first from heaven (and few know this)
          Swings the stroke dealt—
   Stroke and a stress that stars and storms deliver,
   That guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by and melt—
     But it rides time like riding a river
(And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss),

7
               It dates from day
          Of his going in Galilee;
     Warm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;
          Manger, maiden's knee;
   The dense and the driven Passion, and frightful sweat;
   Thence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,
     Though felt before, though in high flood yet—
What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,

8
               Is out with it! Oh,
          We lash with the best or worst
     Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe
          Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,
   Gush!—flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,
   Brim, in a flash, full!—Hither then, last or first,
     To hero of Calvary, Christ,'s feet—
Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it—men go.

9
               Be adored among men,
          God, three-numberèd form;
     Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,
          Man's malice, with wrecking and storm.
   Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,
   Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;
    Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:
Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

10
               With an anvil-ding
          And with fire in him forge thy will
     Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring
          Through him, melt him but master him still:
   Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,
   Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill,
     Make mércy in all of us, out of us all
Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King.

PART THE SECOND

11
               'Some find me a sword; some
          The flange and the rail; flame,
     Fang, or flood' goes Death on drum,
          And storms bugle his fame.
   But wé dream we are rooted in earth—Dust!
   Flesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same,
     Wave with the meadow, forget that there must
The sour scythe cringe, and the blear share come.

12
               On Saturday sailed from Bremen,
          American-outward-bound,
     Take settler and seamen, tell men with women,
          Two hundred souls in the round—
   O Father, not under thy feathers nor ever as guessing
   The goal was a shoal, of a fourth the doom to be drowned;
     Yet did the dark side of the bay of thy blessing
Not vault them, the million of rounds of thy mercy not reeve
     even them in?

13
               Into the snows she sweeps,
          Hurling the haven behind,
     The Deutschland, on Sunday; and so the sky keeps,
          For the infinite air is unkind,
   And the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,
   Sitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;
     Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow
Spins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.

14
               She drove in the dark to leeward,
          She struck—not a reef or a rock
     But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her
          Dead to the Kentish Knock;
   And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of
     her keel:
   The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock;
     And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel
Idle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she endured.

15
               Hope had grown grey hairs,
          Hope had mourning on,
     Trenched with tears, carved with cares,
          Hope was twelve hours gone;
   And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day
   Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone,
     And lives at last were washing away:
To the shrouds they took,—they shook in the hurling and
     horrible airs.