Sarah Simon - Part 4

Thus Sarah snatched her mate out of the sea.
James Trevlock, he, a tawny Cornishman,
Tall, with the blood of sailors in his veins
From Tyre and Gades, and the Cornish ports
Where Penkevil looks down at Harry's Reach.
Truro, and Penryn River, and St. Mawes,
Trefusis, and Pendennis knew them well,
And saw their keels go out to all the world
From coracle to frigate after gain.
Keen at a bargain, and in trading wiles
Tinct with a trace of avid Semite blood
Sharpened with Celtic, set with giant thews
Caught from an ageless struggle with the sea,
They gathered things by shiploads, brought them home,
Sold them to homely Saxons, and got more.
So Trevlock throve until he struck a reef —
After three days of planetary moil.
All that he had went down except one shirt
The waves hung on the coral rocks to dry,
As if in mockery, with gnashed debris
Marked Splendid on its splinters here and there.
He sat for weeks and looked across the sea,
And then came in at nights and slept as if
His mind were washed away. Till breeze and sun,
And many a long hot day upon the beach,
And quiet evenings underneath the beams
With Sarah crooning low beside the fire,
And her soft words, and pleasant, quiet ways
Brought vigor to his limbs and to his mind —
The anodyne it needed for the past
Vanished forever, wife and child, and friends,
And little things his hands kept searching for
Out of sheer habit. All of them were gone.
Life was a blank a while — then time went on.
And he accepted what his fortune brought:
Sarah, the cottage, and the peaceful days
And nights of deathlike sleep. Then lived again.
Began, it seemed, as if he had been born
At thirty-five, with Sarah by his side —
One year of utter peace where no one came —
Then the first baby cried and broke the spell,
And he returned into the world of men.

James Trevlock walked into that island's mart
Much like a man who wakens from a dream.
To many questions he replied one word,
" Shipwrecked, " and that was all, except his eyes
That opened like a space of cloudless sea
Before the sun goes down, then closed again.
That was his answer to the curious.
Soon he was rigging ships and doing well;
Soon he was known to merchants of the place.
And his advice on cargoes added well
In columns on the ledgers of that town
Which throve by shipping, for its cedar ships
Went out to all the world in peace or war,
Bringing fat bales or prizes to the port,
A colony quite lenient in its ways,
Where leniency was sometimes buccaneer.
Not curious, it let its secrets slide
Into the depth of smiling ocean miles
That kept them safe forever. But " Come home, "
That was the watchword, and no questions asked.
By night star-glimmering beaches saw the bales
Roll safely to deep caverns — rum and silk,
And teas, and gold, and spices — that was all.
Let any man but know the ways of sea,
Of stars, and tides, and sextant, drift and sails,
And he was rich. And so James Trevlock throve.
Another year went by, and he had gone
Sailing to Demerara in a brig,
And leaving Sarah watching by the sea.

Then he was back again, a skipper now
By accident, and wiles, and careful tongue,
Now much sought after for his knowing ways.
He brought a store of chests and curious things,
Dresses for Sarah, silks, and combs, and rings,
A bag of sovereigns — buried by the hearth —
And foreign furniture, stools, beds, and chairs,
An English carpet, all a captain's share
Of a long, rich, and profitable voyage
Down to the Indies in a dangerous time.
This trove by night in country carts he hauled
To Sarah's house, and stayed, for it was home.
His child was in the cradle. All he had,
Or knew, or cared for any more was there.
The sea he told himself had cast him there
Into her very arms, and a fierce pride
Sustained him in a careless gratitude
That made her the custodian of things
She scarcely knew the use of, and cared less.
To him it seemed that Sarah's quiet way,
Her welcome, and her love, and spotless house
Obliterated barriers of race,
Brought him oblivion for the toils of sea,
And where he lost his past he might renew
His life again. And so the seasons ran.

Three times he sailed thus; came; and went again,
A year or so between, and for each time,
To mark his advents, as it were, with life,
Another child was born and waited him,
Kicking within the cradle, strong and marked
With his own features, but in copper-brown
With the lithe limbs of Sarah, and her eyes —
A boy that bore his name, a pair of girls;
While every time he came he still brought home
More of his voyage's getting that was stored
In Sarah's cottage, warm now with the glow
Of beaten-copper vessels and the shine
Of paler silver of a Spanish mold,
And red mahogany, and brilliant stuffs,
Scarlets that please the sun-filled tropic eyes
Of Sarah's race, and blues, and rippling browns.
A little " shrine " he called it, for the word
Fell from his lips; it was a " shriney " time
When men still played the gallant to their loves,
Whoever they might be, white, dark, or brown.
And Trevlock was half pirate anyway,
At least in soul, and cared for never a word
Of island whispers silent to his face.
Each child he buried coins for in a bag,
And poured his all for Sarah in her lap
With oaths of gratitude — then sailed away,
Hailing from no place, bound for Ecalpno.

So for the fourth time Sarah watched his sail,
A bigger vessel now, pass out to sea;
Twinkle upon the blue horizon's line;
Mix with the gulls, and vanish. And a year
Went by, and yet he did not come.
And then another, while the children grew;
While she with everything her heart desired
Except his company and passions' purge,
Sat on the promontory by the cove
And sewed or knitted, or else moved about
Minding her simples or the flocks and droves
Now much increased, a profitable care.
Then summer came again, and now she knew
Trevlock would never come to her again.
No, he had gone like Simon; Trevlock, too,
Had gone away from her into the sea.
And she was left upon her plot of ground,
With fruits of her own labor, Trevlock's gifts,
With three small children, and a world to do.

No burst of agony fell from her lips —
Tears from her eyes. A kind of cosmic calm
That she had caught from sea and tree and hill,
And the long doubt that turned to certainty,
From silence after storms, and living things
That walked, or fluttered; bloomed about her house —
Taught her no frenzied pattern for her grief,
But straight acceptance. So her steady eyes
Turned on her children with no hurt despair,
But hope, and happiness, and trust fulfilled,
Like a proud tree that sees its limbs weighed down
By fruit it did not journey far to get
But waited rooted for the voyaging bee
To first despoil its flowers; go away,
And leave his careless trampling marked by fruit —
So were these gifts that life had brought to her.
Nor did she hear the talk of neighbors near.
Half envious it was; they looked on her,
Angry at their own starved and troubled lives.
No trees were they that waited for the bee.
They clutched at things like low, earth-creeping vines
Strangling themselves by their too avid clasp.
They wondered at her beauty and her strength,
Her lovely children, and her calm, firm house
Full of love's gifts they called " the wage of sin, "
Yet coveted — while all her blossoms blew,
Her son and daughters grew, and Sarah lived.