Sea Horse, The - Part 2

The dead are gathered in the sea by demon hands,
The dead that stream to her from many lands;
The finned-gods of the dim, green places
Are skilled to read the story in their faces,
Are curious of all drowned men have done
In upper air beneath the moon and sun.
Some they give rest to under fluted shells
Upon the shifting lights of submerged beaches
That no sound reaches,
But the long tolling of the sunken bells, —
Not so the dwarf:
The moon forbade that they should thrust him forth,
So he came visiting the water-hells,
A careless rider down the moon-sick tides,
Driving sea-children from their ancient places
With the most beautiful of all dead faces,
Until they swore new vengeance on the priest,
Unleashed the Storm's own beast,
And made a treaty with the wind and sand
To drive the moon-priest from the safety of the land.

Certain it is the island changed its weather,
The wind and sand fell on the crops together,
Snatching at every leaf that lifts;
The flocks grew less; the women brought no gifts, —
Hunted by his own wolves, in sore distress,
The priest shifted for his living to the sea,
And the gods down in the water laughed with glee,
Sending him strange meat, jellies no man dare eat,
Fishes from which he cut the poison glands,
Afraid to look upon their egg-white eyes
And fins like little feet.

Then one day as he fished,
He saw the sun upon his right,
Then on his left, now on his right again:
The water flattened in,
Making a breathing sound, the sea turned round and round.
The whorl of water drank into a cave,
And then began to spin
With racing crests upon its metal rim,
That made him rave to see them wave at him.
Down, down the spinning flume
There sucked a whistling wind;
He saw the bottom ooz, a green light on it.
White curds of spume upon it lay,
With fishes belly-up, and red things at their play, —
Then from the gulf there came an organ neigh!

Up the long funnel raced a sea horse,
Whinnying through the spray,
The Storm's own beast,
With dilate scarlet nostrils and bronze hoofs,
Through the mad working of the ocean-yeast
He saw the bulging shoulder muscles play;
Its scalloped mane
Waved like black lightnings in his haggard brain.
Then the sea shut its oval mouth,
And the horse snorted at the sun,
Stamping in foam as if he trod a tun,
While the priest dug up the water with his oar,
Scudding with screaming gulls back for the shore,
And the horse followed with a clang.
Loud thwacked his hoofs,
And once the whole sea rang;
There was a smothered clash
When the broad breast met the flange of waves
With sullen crash,
With long smooth strides the horse tore
Over the molten levels of the tides.
But the priest reached the shore.
Yet late!
The horse was on him, trampling the boat
With rendings as of ice in arctic winters —
Off float the cedar splinters.
But the wolves met him on the beach,
Rushing the horse in waves.
Now up and down the strand the wild fight raves,
With roaring wolves and screaming neigh,
Thunder of hoofs,
While the sea bellows in its hollow caves.
The echoes woke and spoke
A gibberish like braying of hell's asses;
Over the sand an eagle's shadow passes.
The green-breasted bull gods of the sea
Rose from the waves, roaring with glee,
The horse's ripped flanks flapped like rags.
Twelve wolves are down, trampled to quivering bags.
And the last leaps for his throat,
Fierce as a mother stoat.
Loud drums the thud of kicks,
Now dull, now thick, sound sick ...
There burst a song of hoofs along the strand —
The priest is down upon the sand ...
Tossed to the stallion's neck,
A black arch, white with many a mad foam-fleck;
Now with a pacing motion
He whirls the screaming priest into the ocean.

But the moon arose by day
And spoke in metal words unto the sea,
That fell like ashes from her pale lip's grey,
Until the sea began to swoon
Under the silver nostrils of the moon,
And with a shaggy hand
She set the drowned priest back upon the land.