The Loss of the Eurydice Foundered March 24. 1878

1     The Eurydice - it concerned thee, O Lord:     Three hundred souls, O alas! on board,     Some asleep unawakened, all un-     warned, eleven fathoms fallen     2     Where she foundered! One stroke     Felled and furled them, the hearts of oak!     And flockbells off the aerial     Downs' forefalls beat to the burial.     3     For did she pride her, freighted fully, on     Bounden bales or a hoard of bullion? -     Precious passing measure,     Lads and men her lade and treasure.     4     She had come from a cruise, training seamen -     Men, boldboys soon to be men:     Must it, worst weather,     Blast bole and bloom together?     5     No Atlantic squall overwrought her     Or rearing billow of the Biscay water:     Home was hard at hand     And the blow bore from land.     6     And you were a liar, O blue March day.     Bright sun lanced fire in the heavenly bay;     But what black Boreas wrecked her? he     Came equipped, deadly-electric,     7     A beetling baldbright cloud thorough England     Riding: there did storms not mingle? and     Hailropes hustle and grind their     Heavengravel? wolfsnow, worlds of it, wind there?     8     Now Carisbrook keep goes under in gloom;     Now it overvaults Appledurcombe;     Now near by Ventnor town     It hurls, hurls off Boniface Down.     9     Too proud, too proud, what a press she bore!     Royal, and all her royals wore.     Sharp with her, shorten sail!     Too late; lost; gone with the gale.     10     This was that fell capsize,     As half she had righted and hoped to rise     Death teeming in by her portholes     Raced down decks, round messes of mortals.     11     Then a lurch forward, frigate and men;     'All hands for themselves' the cry ran then;     But she who had housed them thither     Was around them, bound them or wound them with her.     12     Marcus Hare, high her captain,     Kept to her - care-drowned and wrapped in     Cheer's death, would follow     His charge through the champ-white water-in-a-wallow.     13     All under Channel to bury in a beach her     Cheeks: Right, rude of feature,     He thought he heard say     'Her commander! and thou too, and thou this way.'     14     It is even seen, time's something server,     In mankind's medley a duty-swerver,     At downright 'No or yes?'     Doffs all, drives full for righteousness.     15     Sydney Fletcher, Bristol-bred,     (Low lie his mates now on watery bed)     Takes to the seas and snows     As sheer down the ship goes.     16     Now her afterdraught gullies him too down;     Now he wrings for breath with the deathgush brown;     Till a lifebelt and God's will     Lend him a lift from the sea-swill.     17     Now he shoots short up to the round air;     Now he gasps, now he gazes everywhere;     But his eye no cliff, no coast or     Mark makes in the rivelling snowstorm.     18     Him, after an hour of wintry waves,     A schooner sights, with another, and saves,     And he boards her in Oh! such joy     He has lost count what came next, poor boy. -     19     They say who saw one sea-corpse cold     He was all of lovely manly mould,     Every inch a tar,     Of the best we boast our sailors are.     20     Look, foot to forelock, how all things suit! he     Is strung by duty, is strained to beauty,     And brown-as-dawning-skinned     With brine and shine and whirling wind.     21     O his nimble finger, his gnarled grip!     Leagues, leagues of seamanship     Slumber in these forsaken     Bones, this sinew, and will not waken.     22     He was but one like thousands more,     Day and night I deplore     My people and born own nation,     Fast foundering own generation,     23     I might let bygones be - our curse     Of ruinous shrine no hand or, worse,     Robbery's hand is busy to     Dress, hoar-hallowd shrines unvisited;     24     Only the breathing temple and fleet     Life, this wildworth blown so sweet,     These daredeaths, ay this crew, in     Unchrist, all rolled in ruin -     25     Deeply surely I need to deplore it,     Wondering why my master bore it,     The riving off that race     So at home, time was, to his truth and grace     26     That a starlight-wender of ours would say     The marvellous Milk was Walsingham Way     And one - but let be, let be:     More, more than was will yet be. -     27     O well wept, mother have lost son;     Wept, wife; wept, sweetheart would be one:     Though grief yield them no good     Yet shed what tears sad truelove should.     28     But to Christ lord of thunder     Crouch; lay knee by earth low under:     'Holiest, loveliest, bravest,     Save my hero, O Hero savest.     29     And the prayer thou hearst me making     Have, at the awful overtaking,     Heard; have heard and granted     Grace that day grace was wanted.'     30     Not that hell knows redeeming,     But for souls sunk in seeming     Fresh, till doomfire burn all,     Prayer shall fetch pity eternal.