LIBRARY 
 
 ANNEX 
 
 2 
 
 >»K' , 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4970.M13M9 
 
 Mutineers; 
 
 3 1924 025 935 184 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240259351 84 
 
THE MUTINEERS. 
 
JOHN BAXTEIl, PKINTEK, JAMES COUHT, EDINBURGH. 
 
THE MUTINEERS; 
 
 % i^em. 
 
 JOHN M'^GILCHRIST, M.D. 
 
 EDINBUEGH: SUTHEELAND & KNOX. 
 
 LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO. 
 
 MDCCCLIX. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following Poem — descriptive of the Mutiny 
 of the Bounty in the South Seas, in 1789 ; the 
 subsequent wanderings of the Mutineers ; their 
 settlement in Pitcawris Island^ and their ulti'^ 
 mate fate — is strictly founded on the facts of 
 that romantic story, as related by Sir John Bar- 
 row in his interesting little work;* although^ 
 here and there, the Author has availed himself 
 
 * The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of 
 H.M.S. Bmmty: its Causes and Consequences. London, 1835, 
 
viu Veeface. 
 
 of a customary poetic license to invent or alter 
 the portrait of a character or the turn of an 
 event. 
 
 In the preface to the work referred to — a 
 work the documents composing which were not 
 in existence when Lord Byron wrote his poem 
 " The Island'^ — Sir John Barrow says, that he 
 " has been induced to bring into one connected 
 view what has hitherto appeared only in detach- 
 ed fragments (and some of them not generally 
 accessible), the historical narrative of an event 
 which deeply interested the public at the time 
 of its occurrence, and from which the naval ser- 
 vice in particular, in aU its ranks, may still draw 
 instructive and useful lessons." 
 
 " The story (he adds) is not ill adapted for an 
 Epic Poem. Lord Byron, indeed, has partially 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 treated the subject ; but by blending two incon- 
 gruous stories, and leaving both of them imper- 
 fect, and by mixing up fact with fiction, has 
 been less felicitous than usual ; for beautiful as 
 many passages in his ' Island' atq, in a region 
 where every tree and flower and fountain breathe 
 poetry, yet as a whole the poem is feeble, and 
 deficient in dramatic interest." 
 
 Very recently, the Pitcairn Islanders — the 
 descendents of the Mutineers — were removed en 
 masse to Norfolk Island, as a less limited'field 
 for their augmenting numbers ; and Pitcairn, 
 their former world, is destined, probably, to re- 
 vert to its pristine state — that of a solitary ten- 
 antless isle, a vpild variegated rock, set like some 
 natural gem in the surf of furthest ocean. Per- 
 haps it will never more be trod by the foot of 
 man. But the strange drama— as strange as any 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 fiction — of which it was the romantic theatre, 
 entitles it to rank as perhaps the most celebrat- 
 ed, though one of the smallest, of the islands of 
 the Pacific, on whose surface a generation of 
 mankind has been born and lived and died ; and 
 the Author is not without a modest hope that, 
 with all its faults, this Poem may help to perpe- 
 tuate the history of that miniature world. 
 
 Edinburgh, April 1859. 
 

 
 Page 
 
 I. 
 
 THE SHIP, 
 
 J 
 
 II. 
 
 THE MUTINY, 
 
 . 23 
 
 III. 
 
 THE ISLANDS, 
 
 . 57 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT, 
 
 . 87 
 
 V. 
 
 THE INSDEEECTION, 
 
 . 121 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE LAST MAN, 
 
 . 157 
 
 
 NOTES, 
 
 . 189 
 
I. 
 
 THE SHIP. 
 
I. 
 
 THE SHIP. 
 
 Come jEoltjs ! the curtains of the South 
 In balmy folds from the Pacific raise, 
 And kiss my trembling lyre with ardent mouth, 
 Where loom the palm-clad isles through summer haze ; 
 While fi'om the hollow of yon haunted shell 
 The moaning sea its tempest-tale doth tell 
 In floating music, like the vesper chime 
 Mingling with Ocean's sleepy roar in tropic clime. 
 
 A 2 
 
4 THE MDTINEEKS. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Twas day upon the ocean, and the waves, 
 The sunny South-sea waves, were gamholing. 
 Like careless boyhood, over many graves ; 
 And ocean's winds their madrigals did sing. 
 Like most inconstant lovers, languidly ; 
 O'er the undulating plain the deep Hue sky 
 Hung like an upper, vast ethereal flood. 
 All waveless and serene, with scarce a floating cloud. 
 
 II. 
 
 The sea-bird wooed the billow's soft attack. 
 The gay bonito swam in rainbow spray, 
 The wave's green shadow was reflected back 
 To the blue sky upon the dolphin's ray, 
 And, like a floating isle, leviathan 
 Drank air and light, awhile unchased by man ; 
 The basking shark from out the deep did glare. 
 As even he was charmed to scent the upper air. 
 
THE SHIP. 
 III. 
 
 And o'er the trackless 'waters spread a haze 
 Like finest gossamer, wtose tremhlings gave 
 Transparent magic to the noon-day blaze ; 
 As if the air itself were but a wave 
 Of subtler essence, musical to see, 
 And steeping the list'ner in reverie 
 Solemn, like that in which the liquid plain, 
 By argosies unploughed, for centuries had lain. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yes ; there indeed a thousand years before, 
 Even as now repeated was the past : 
 There, for milleniums long, the ocean's roar 
 Was answered only by the tempest's blast ; 
 There shone the eternal sun in circling change," 
 That seemed not change, ere man began to range, 
 Or ceased to deem the hovel of his birth 
 The aim and limit of the habitable earth. 
 
b THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vain man ! yet great ; ideally supreme ; 
 Weak to discover, mighty to invent ! 
 Yes ; in the poet's scarcely human dream 
 The unsailed sea, the unknown continent 
 Is first descried, as that which ought to lie 
 Within the bounds of man's mortality. 
 Hail, Poetry ! Columbus of the mind ! 
 Who sails with thee finds new, and leaves old worlds 
 behind. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Day danced and smiled on ocean's solitudes ; 
 Majestic solitudes I in unchained life 
 Eejoioing most where man the least intrudes : 
 Alas ! deceitful prelude to the strife 
 Of elements more subtle than the wind — 
 What storms so treacherous as those of mind ! — 
 Where the sky's golden dome embraced the west 
 A floating speck appeared, like some white sea-bird's 
 breast. 
 
THE SHIP. 7 
 
 VII. 
 
 Bird of strange plumage ! what and whence art thou? 
 Dost sail the sky, or art thou of the deep ? 
 The deep that meets the sky where heaven's bow 
 On the horizon spans thee in its keep? 
 Coquet no more with calms, thou floating storm ! 
 Come to the nadir and reveal thy form — 
 A ship, a ship ! an ark of the old world, 
 Cruising the southern deluge, every sail unfurl'd. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Beautiful, awful sea-bird ! as she bent 
 Her armed ribs to every fitfnl blast. 
 Her blood-red pennant o'er her white sails sent 
 Stern orders to those solitudes at last. 
 So fled the ancient Dolphin to its den. 
 And dived the Mermaid evermore from men, 
 When Fable, fat with sleep, resigned her reign, 
 And man and art and discipline usurped the main. 
 
O THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then must we part, ye glorious fantasies 1 
 That bred upon the strings of ancient lyres, 
 And peopled lonely lands and unknown seas 
 With fairy forms and supernatural fires ? 
 Say, elfin bower, say haunted stream and lake — 
 Ye minstrel spells so difficult to break ! — 
 May sober Fact with Fancy reconcile ? 
 Or must dead Fiction prove the Muses' fun'ral pile ? 
 
 X. 
 
 Weep not, weep not, Genius of the Past ! 
 Fable grows blind and Mystery old and pale. 
 But where'er Time hath shadows backward cast 
 There dwells enchantment still : in every vale 
 The streamlet's tale the ear of Evening fills 
 With legends carried from the distant hills ; 
 And starry hosts still look on sacred plains, 
 And shepherds, if they watch, still hear angelic strains. 
 
THE SHIP. i 
 
 XI. 
 
 On comes the gallant ship : lo ! on her prow 
 Stands the quaint image of an old sea-god, 
 At whose advance the waves rise up and bow, 
 And swift divide the waters at his nod, 
 Where, throned on wooden walls, Neptune presides 
 Supremely as of yore o'er winds and tides : 
 Though shorn of deity by man's decree. 
 Dull Fact shall ne'er expel his trident from the sea. 
 
 XII. 
 
 His worship has decayed, but not the strain 
 In which old poets sang his fabled birth : 
 Stealing and swelling o'er the wand'ring main 
 The sea-god's story circles still the earth, 
 And to the Future, brooding o'er the waves, 
 Kepeats the echoes of the ^olian caves. 
 To cheat the drowsy mariner, unborn. 
 Of half his weary watch on some tempestuous morn. 
 
10 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 On glides the tall ship, white with tapering sail, 
 Steed-like careering to the fresh'ning breeze ; — 
 Fit sight to turn the tawny savage pale. 
 Where, from his virgin isle of rocks and trees. 
 Scanning the liquid plain he pristine sits ! 
 When first across his world the vision flits, 
 He gazes, rapt, till ship and sky combine. 
 And prostrate then adores what seems to him divine. 
 
 xrv. 
 
 Such is untutored man, earth's untilled child ; 
 While babe in reason, man in impulse grown ; 
 To him the world on Mystery seems piled. 
 And dumb with awe he worships the unknown. 
 Tet why should Science waste on him a sneer, 
 Or Learning shed its crocodile false tear ? 
 Pride ! ponder Athens and her Unknown God, 
 And, ere ye stoop to scourge the savage, kiss the rod I 
 
THE SHIP. 11 
 
 XV. 
 
 Not thus did cooling thought, like summer cloud, 
 
 Possess the fiery soul of him who paced 
 
 The frigate's deck with mien severe and proud. 
 
 On such a man command seemed not misplaced ; 
 
 His port was bold, his eye iiashed fall and keen. 
 
 Born under other stars he might have been 
 
 A pirate captain or renowned brigand ; 
 
 But, happier fate ! he served his king and native land. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Circumstance, subruler of the world ! 
 How often dost thou govern man's resolve, 
 And swell the sails thy favourites would have furl'd ! 
 The destinies round which great men revolve 
 Are the right turnings in a narrow road. 
 Where myriads toil and millions down are trod ; 
 Nor to the strong the fight, the swift the race, 
 Since wealth became renown and poverty disgrace. 
 
12 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Courage and Genius, with the sword and pen, 
 Do trace out names on Time's ancestral trees ; 
 But, oftener far, ungifted plodding men 
 Crawl slowly up to earth's supremacies. 
 Ambition waits its post. Genius its'friend ; 
 Neither may come, or both false counsel lend : 
 Born base, the captain of yon frigate tall 
 Had died a desp'rate man — not a brave Admiral. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 His frown was dreaded by his brawny crew 
 More than the gathering of the huricane, 
 And his fierce wrath was their worst gale that blew ; 
 They hated him and feared him to a man. 
 But, although stern and cruel, he was brave. 
 And skilled, when danger came, the ship to save ; 
 Hence those who hated him despised him not : 
 His sailors were his slaves, his ship a "hell-afloat." ^ 
 
THE SHIP. 13 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Portentous title ! not inaptly given 
 To their far-wand'ring bark by those fierce tars : 
 Long cast off from the land, they railed at heaven, 
 And with mad oaths assailed the Southern stars. 
 The Cross, of constellations most divine, 
 Shone o'er them nightly, but without a sign ; 
 They saw The Ship of heaven sail azure seas. 
 And hailed it not from theirs, except with blasphemies ! 
 
 XX. 
 
 No thoughts of home and kindred come to cheer 
 Their gloomy souls, sick of eternal brine. 
 Of love and land raved each sad mariner. 
 But not for Albion's white cliffs did they pine, 
 Or England's daughters pale ; Tahiti's isle,^ 
 Which they were leaving weary mile on mile. 
 Dragged at their anchored hearts far o'er the lee ; 
 For they had dreamt a dream of Eden on the sea. 
 
14 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Yes ; it was dream-like, though not all a show, 
 That vernal trance of languor and of love 
 Which once in his existence he did know, — 
 He, who had never soared before above 
 A drunken revel or a purchased kiss ; — 
 Well might he dream as of unmingled bliss. 
 When dusky houris, in Taheitan bowers. 
 Pressed on him luscious fruit and strewed his couch with 
 flowers ! 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Ah I if 'tis hardly conquered in the wise 
 To shun inglorious ease and woman's wile, 
 Shall the strong ocean-rover bend his eyes 
 On willing vassalage and pleasure's smile, 
 And pass the cup the warm voluptuous South 
 Holds, red and brimming, to his ardent mouth ? 
 Sooner might fa,bled Satyr shun the glade 
 Where from Diana's train some Hebe warm had strayed ! 
 
THE SHIP. 15 
 
 xxni. 
 Dusky yet fair were the Taheitan maids — 
 (Fresi youth aud love, with an expressive face 
 And graceful form, illumine many shades) — 
 Untilled domains spread for this happy race 
 A feast on either hand ; around their beach. 
 Hemmed in by coral reefs shoaled to their reach, 
 The sparkling calm sea teemed with finny food. 
 While troops of fat wild hogs roamed every swamp and 
 wood. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 There the banana's lucious cluster hung. 
 With, lost to man now, nameless flower-fruits rare. 
 And to a tree, apt staff of life, there clung 
 The fruity bread for ever priceless there ; 
 Without a blight the sweet-potato throve. 
 And custard-apples wild perfiimed the grove 
 That cast its cool shades o'er the blue lagoons. 
 Where nature's Sybarites floated away their noons. 
 
16 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 These were the days when Europe's rare-seen bark 
 Was worshipped by the natives ; as it neared 
 Matavai's Bay, like some returning Ark 
 Of which from their forefathers they had heard, 
 With songs of joy they launched the light canoe, 
 Eager to meet the ship o'er waters blue 
 And guide the willing strangers to the shore, 
 Destined thenceforth, alas ! to be their own no more. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 palmy days of palmy islands blest ! 
 When artless natives dwelt in happy homes, 
 Set like pure gems on the Pacific's breast ; 
 Ere yet the white man, who incessant roams — 
 A restless Cain — had made them his abode, 
 And pristine fields with heel of iron trod, 
 Turning fresh worlds to prematurely old. 
 In vice, disease, deceit and cant, and thirst for gold ! ' 
 
THE SHIP. 17 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The Bounty lingered on her watery way, 
 And Bligh, her captain, sterner grew again, 
 Oft cursing in his heart the fatal stay 
 At Otaheite that relaxed his men. 
 Ah ! many a one, since perished Hannibal, 
 Has owed to syren luxury his fall ; 
 For sunny climes unnerve the soldier's arm, 
 And the rough sailor's love robs danger of its charm, 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Bligh lived and reigned apart, without a friend — 
 A lonely man within a crowded ship ; 
 A king-afloat who longed, but could not bend, 
 To meet the cup of friendship near his lip. 
 Some of his officers he almost loved, 
 But his right hand by discipline was gloved 
 So tightly that it could not open wide ; 
 And he called duty what was tyranny or pride. 
 
18 THE MUTINEKKS. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 He was a man quite common in this world 
 Of common minds — ah, few are truly great ! 
 Amongst the many who, with sails unfurl'd, 
 Loom large and lofty through the haze of fate, 
 A few emerge to gaze on glory's sky 
 And conquer here their immortality : 
 The rest are passing shadows, scarcely seen, 
 Save by a partial few who dream that they have been. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 And where the surging mass, the common waves — 
 Each wave an aggregate of human souls — 
 Where are their countless deeds, their names, their 
 
 graves ? 
 Who marks the ocean's billow as it rolls. 
 Who follows it and finds the trace it left 
 Upon the deep mysterious chasm it cleft ? 
 Who scans the generations of mankind. 
 And finds their vacant place, or what they leave behind I 
 
TUK SHIP. 19 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Bligh died an Admiral ; his story all — 
 That of ten thousand who are doad — forgot. 
 Oblivion would have spread o'er him its pall, 
 And he, unmarked, had shared the common lot, 
 But for another's crime, another's name, 
 Which links with his and whispers it to fame ; — 
 Such borrowed fame as story framed in song 
 May lend to passing deeds of suffering and wrong. 
 
 xxxit. 
 The evening watch was set,* the sails were trimmed, 
 And luminous eddies bubbled the ship's track, 
 Where from the rippled sea the moon rose, dimmed, 
 Like vague suspense, by white clouds fringed with 
 
 black ; — 
 Subdued at such a time by such a scene. 
 The cold stern kipg-at-sea, as he had been. 
 Stood on his creaking scaffolding of power, 
 The Bounty's deck, and musing met the melting hour. 
 
30 THE, MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 He mused and he grew sad, at that " soft hour 
 That wakes the wish and melts the heart " on land, 
 By ruin hoar or vesper-haunted bower, 
 When Meditation takes us by the hand. 
 And points the way we oftener should go — 
 The dewy path that winds mid hillocks low. 
 Where Sorrow hears the village poet sigh 
 O'er Intellect's green grave, last home of penury. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 He spoke ; but what he said, the idle wave 
 Eolled over as it gamboled past the ship ; 
 He sighed ; but what his long-drawn breathing gave 
 AVas to the wind ; upon his quivering lip 
 It seemed as if there hung some utt'rance mild, 
 Despite his haughty vigilance beguil'd 
 To break Pride's prison and tell, in accents low, 
 How in life's sea the warmest currents deepest flow. 
 
THE SHIP. 21 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Perhaps his inmost soul repented then 
 Of the ungenerous garb it had put on ; 
 And fain would he have smiled upon his men, 
 And callous hearts with manly kindness won ; 
 Perhaps his slumbering candour weakly longed 
 To press the hand in his, his most had wronged, 
 And in humiliation seeking rest. 
 Confess to Christian what most weighed upon his breast. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Or was it some too true presentiment 
 That, like an icy spirit, passed before 
 The portals of his inner man, and lent 
 Pallor and vagueness to the look he wore ? 
 Or did he trace on the fantastic clouds 
 That westward canopied, like fairy shrouds, 
 The grandly dying day, some dreadful sign, 
 Pointing to coming woes athwart the darkening brine ? 
 
22 THE MUTINBKRS, 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 He sighed again, and turned to leave the deck — ■ 
 Alas, no more to tread it in command 1 
 A human hurricane was on his track, 
 And shelter hopeless as the distant land. 
 He left the deck ; but, pausing as he went, 
 A long long look on the tall sails he bent, 
 Now shaking solemn in the fading light. 
 And gave the Bounty up to treachery and night ! 
 
11. 
 
 THE MUTINY. 
 
II, 
 
 THE MUTINY. 
 
 Dread Night ! betwixt the ocean and the sky 
 When thou dost fill all space with shapeless forms, 
 And Silence, eloquent with mystery, 
 Peoples thy calms or prophecies thy storms, — 
 At thy mid hour, when darkness clothes thy face, 
 What marvel the lone tar his watch doth pace 
 With superstitious awe, and sometimes sees 
 The Phantom-ship glide swiftly past without a breeze ! 
 
2(5 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 Beautiful Night I when the dark- tinkling wave 
 .Sings to the dancing of the twinkling stars, 
 And nothing pales thy constellations save 
 The roving meteors on their rocket-cars, 
 Old ocean rocks thee on thy pristine throne ; 
 'Twas here thy glorious galaxies first shone, 
 Brilliant as now, ere woke Creation's sleep, 
 And land and life leapt up from the incumbent deep. 
 
 Soul-stirring Night ! on the horizoned sea. 
 When not a wreath hedims heaven's vestal lights, 
 The mind atuned to lofty harmony 
 Can catch some echo from yon starry heights ; 
 For, as of yore, the music of the Spheres 
 Has still a mystic tale for human ears. 
 Although to few the privilege belongs 
 To comprehend the grandeur of those silent songs. 
 
THE MUTINY. 27 
 
 'Tis moonlight on the ocean ; and high heaven 
 Serenely smiles on surges half asleep, 
 Across whose undulations, gently driven, 
 The Bounty white her devious course doth keep ; 
 Pacing his watch, one glares across the main, 
 (Ah, fated long and oft to gaze again I) 
 Undulating like something in his hreast. 
 With bloodshot eye, and pallid check, and lip comprest. 
 
 He starts, as o'er his thoughts a purpose steals, 
 And, muttering as in sleep, his eyes seem mixed 
 With the far moonlight where it faint reveals 
 A cloudy shape on the horizon fixed — 
 A Crusoe's hope, a tenantless abode, 
 Trod by the shapeless foot of Solitude ; 
 An islet low, round which the salt surge beats 
 On coral reefs that guard the turtle's lone retreats. 
 
'28 THE MOTINEEES. 
 
 'Tis Christian on his watch : to him yon isle, 
 By moonlight and by distance softened, seems 
 A spot whence he at tyranny might smile — 
 A paradise oft visited in dreams ; 
 Yonder it lies, but soon it will be pass'd. 
 And of those scattered isles it is the last : 
 Gods ! he will venture on a raft or spar,'' 
 Though sharks be near and moonlight miles be far. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But even then a light cloud o'er the moon 
 Passing obscured the distant sea a while ; 
 And though, as came the cloud, it vanished soon, 
 When Christian looked again gone was the isle. 
 And nothing met his gaze save sea and sky 
 Joining around him, as in mockery. 
 Say, did he dream ? or was the vision lent 
 To lure him from worse crime and guiltier banishmeut? 
 
THE MUTINY. 29 
 
 V. 
 
 Alas, he looked towards heaven and cursed his fate ! 
 And like a galley-slave chained to his oar, 
 He called on fiends to aid his shackled hate, 
 As by the powers of heaven and hell he swore, 
 Since from his floating pris'n he might not break, 
 The darker leap of mutiny to take. 
 He wandered till resolved ; then calm he grew. 
 And whistled on the fitful wind that round the Bounty 
 blew. 
 
 VI. 
 
 He whistled on the wind, nor did betray 
 The workings of suspense, although his face " 
 Looked pale and ghastly in the moon's cold ray ; 
 Passion he mastered, but it left its trace 
 Upon the heart it scorched ; and thus within 
 Himself the mutineer excuse"d his sin. 
 Nursing the fatal doctrine in his soiil, ■ 
 That all our destinies are fixed beyond control : 
 
30 THE MUTINEEBS. 
 
 " Why should I shun (he thought) whatheaven.permits ^ 
 
 I would have fled from Bligh and tyranny, 
 
 But not on me the choice of evils sits. 
 
 No ; I may perish, but I cannot fly : 
 
 Bligh cursed me yesterday — he read fate well ; 
 
 To-morrow I command this floating hell ! 
 
 The men invite me — hush ! our tyrants sleep, 
 
 And Destiny whispers Chance athwart the brooding 
 deep!" 
 
 vm. 
 Stem as his thoughts, the mutineer looked out 
 Upon the sea, now bathed in fairy light. ' 
 
 To do what he had set his heart was stout, 
 But not for what then met his startled sight : 
 He saw too pure a vision of the past — 
 The maid he loved, as he had seen her last ; 
 Upon the sea he thought he saw her stand, 
 
 As beautiful, and ah ! as sad, as last on land. 
 
THE MUTINY. 31 
 
 IX. 
 
 She smiled on him, and waved her little hand, 
 Not as she had done on their parting day — 
 Tlie smile too cold, the attitude too grand ; 
 And something rohed around her seemed to say — 
 " 1 am that was the partner of thy heart, 
 But dream of me no more ; to-night we part." 
 Weird, low sad music o'er the still sea crept 
 As she evanished: Christian gazed, and gazed, and wept. 
 
 X. 
 
 All yes ! he wept, for memory wrung his soul ; 
 He wept those bitter tears by many shed. 
 What time the Past before them doth unrol 
 The panoramas of their first loves dead ; 
 Where Youth looks back and dares them to forget, 
 And Time prolongs the shadows of regret, — 
 Regret, that in life's pageant acts the slave 
 Permitted to remind, but powerless to save. 
 
32 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 What although Warning's voice the ear may fill — 
 With many a sigh though we lament the past ? 
 Through thorns and briers the road of life winds still : 
 Guarding against the ills that happened last, 
 Impatient of the toils that lie before, 
 We perish looking back, like her of yore,* 
 Whose pillared fate still marks the ancient plains 
 Where Memory conquered Hope, and Freedom sighed 
 for chains ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Slow o'er the moon-lit sea the Bounty glides — 
 Strange home of hollow hearts and leaden eyes ! 
 The shark within her stealthy shadow hides. 
 The Albatross around her noiseless flies ; 
 And nothing jars on ocean's general hush, 
 Above the hidden gulfs where currents rush 
 Through caverned aisles in coral mountains steep, 
 Where fabled Mermaids guard the treasures of the deep. 
 
 » Lot's Wife. 
 
THE MUTINY. 33 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ha ! clinging to the briny stalactites, 
 How many an orbless skull and wHte blanched bone 1 
 Owned once by men who perished in sea-fights 
 Whereat no cannon roared — men drifted lone 
 On crazy raft, long eyed by hungry shark, 
 Till starving horror welcomed madness — Hark ! 
 It is the Mermaid, chanting to the moon 
 The drifting death of one who erst was messmate boon : 
 
 " Again, again ! I slept again," 
 Cried the Castaway, awaking. 
 And the salt sea spray from his face away 
 He dashed, as morn was breaking. 
 
 " No land, no land !" and he put his hand 
 To his eyes, for the sun was rising — 
 A brazen globe without a robe, 
 Aurora's flight surprising. 
 
 G 
 
34 THE MUTINEEHS. 
 
 " A ship, a ship ! for a ship I" 
 He ever kept exclaiming : 
 Ship came there none, where fierce the sun 
 O'er desert sea hung flaming. 
 
 How wild his stare ! What sees he there? 
 (The sun on his head is beating) 
 Hark I " Ship a-hoy ! joy, joy ! "— 
 His messmates he is greeting. 
 
 The sun is high, a madman's eye 
 In a socket deep is rolling ; 
 He sees a boat beside him float. 
 And a fair girl in it lolling. 
 
 Low warbling he hears her sing : 
 " My love, my handsome sailor, 
 Eeturned from sea your bride I'll be — 
 If the shark be not your jailer ! " 
 
THE MUTINY. 35 
 
 With a cry of death she vanisheth, 
 And in her stead appearing, 
 The sea-dog growls, the sea-wolf howls, 
 And fiends rise round him jeering. 
 
 They gloar and swim round him, at him, 
 With hiss, and laugh, and antic ; — 
 The sun reigns red, right over head, — 
 The Castaway is frantic ! 
 
 King Sun lies down with a purple frown. 
 And o'er the waste of waters. 
 Queen Moon walks out and leads the rout 
 With the Stars, her royal daughters. 
 
 how they glance, and how they dance ! 
 In groups to each other clinging; — 
 Now round the raft, where foul fiends laughed. 
 The angels white are singing. 
 
 c 2 
 
36 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 Still, still te lay, the Castaway ! 
 
 Low burned life's fitful fever ; 
 
 On the starry skies wide stare his eyes, — 
 
 How fixed, how fixed for ever ! 
 
 'Tis over now. bind his brow 
 With the sea-weed green and dripping I 
 And bear him deep, where sailors sleep 
 In the gentle Mermaid's keeping. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But Christian banished scenes like these awhile. 
 And ealmly pondered his impending blow. 
 Weighing the hazard with a gloomy smile, 
 Over the dice with which he was to throw 
 For fearful stakes he gloated grimly ; then 
 He felt what few feel twice 'mong living men — 
 The charm of mortal danger, and the glee 
 With which the desperate welcome chances others flee. 
 
THE MUTINY. 37 
 
 XT. 
 
 But it was not yet time ; he chid the hours 
 Whose each suspensive moment seemed a year ; 
 And, once again, a thought of moonlit bowers. 
 And of a soft voice warbling in his ear, 
 Brought back a dream of years in moments passed — 
 Again he saw her as he saw her last ! 
 He dashed her from his heart, and spurred his soul. 
 And swore to drain revenge though hell were in the bowl ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Within his cot, rocked by a gentle swell. 
 And dead to present time and sense, Bligh slept. 
 High, like his ship, his visions rose and fell 
 Beneath that deck where brooding Christian kept 
 The sword of mutiny balanced o'er his head. 
 He recked not of it, slumbering without dread : 
 His dreams were n(rt of love ; no, mightier far. 
 Ambition bound his sleep upon her glittering car ! 
 
38 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 And up slie soared with him to proud heights, whence 
 He saw life's devious paths spread out below, 
 Crowded with strugglers pale, in masses dense, 
 All pressing onwards like a ragged show ; 
 Yet here and there a few the throng forsook. 
 To write apart their names in History's book — 
 Vast missal 1 fretted deep with crime exhumed, 
 As with bright names inscribed, and glorious deeds 
 illumed. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 He dreamt of glory, honour, rank and fame, 
 Purchased upon the wave by blood and toil ; 
 Blood raining wealth, toil bringing forth a name 
 Lifted by monuments above that soil 
 That was to press his titled brow at last. 
 And cheat the ocean of a proud repast : 
 He was an Admiral, and led the van. 
 And through his gallant fleet presage of victory ran. 
 
THE MUTINY. 39 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But long in vain lie chased the enemy's fleet, 
 His earldom 'scaping with his country's foes ;-^ 
 'Mongst rocks and shoals, against head winds they beat, 
 And never in fair battle could they close ; 
 Like phantom-ships theirs ran before fierce gales, 
 Whilst his, becalmed, lay flapping idle sails : 
 'Twixt him and a lee shore they seemed his own 
 At night, but with the morning mists they, too, were gone. 
 
 XX. 
 
 At last the wind was fair — happy chance ! 
 And near him lay becalmed the enemy. 
 Now Glory was about to break her trance, 
 And Destiny shouted — death or victory ! 
 As close upon their battle line he bore. 
 Hark! how the sailors cheer, the cannon roar! 
 They reel — they strike — the battle now is won ! 
 Ah no ! proud Bligh, awake ! it has but now begun. 
 
40 THE MUTINEEBS. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And he awoke. awful second birlh ! 
 To those for whom Calamity or Want 
 Like a stern creditor sits by the hearth, 
 Or by the pillow stands, cold, grim and gaunt, 
 drudging Forgetfulness her too brief reign. 
 sad awaking to dull life again, 
 Or to the beggar who had won a throne, 
 Or to the hero whose was fame, without a groan ! 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Thus Bligh awoke from glorious dreams to shame : 
 Cruel the broken spell and rude the shock ! 
 As when poor poets wake to duties tame, 
 Hurled from Elysian bowers to earth's hard rock, 
 So he awoke, from fancied victory, 
 To find himself deserted on the sea : 
 His opening eyes ferocious glances met," 
 And at his swelling breast there flashed a bayonet I 
 
THE MUTINY. 41 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 And thou too Brutus ! Ah ! no foreign hand 
 Threatened Bligh's manly breast, as there he lay, 
 Like a roused lion, caged, surprised, hut grand. 
 Beside him stood the friend of yesterday — 
 Christain, whom he had trusted and reviled 
 One day too long — Christian, he deemed so mild : 
 And now, too late, he read that silent man. 
 Who shrank from, petty storms hut wooed the hurricane. 
 
 'Twas Christian's cutlass point that touched his breast. 
 And his the nervous arm that bound him down ; 
 'Twas Christian's voice that thundered on his rest. 
 And what first met his gaze was Christian's frown ; 
 Of other meaner rebels, round his cot, 
 Some acted well their parts, and some forgot : 
 He could have charmed the most back with a nod, 
 For still he was their chief, were Christian not their god — 
 
42 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Their new false god, their idol for an hour. 
 'Tis ever so when wretched men conspire ; 
 They change some names, but still they worship Power, 
 And kneel to him who leads them through the fire ; 
 Till from the ashes of revolt arise 
 Again the chief deposed, who never dies, 
 And the allegiance paid to lordly mind. 
 Will sway the world though Monarchies grow old and 
 Wind. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Bligh strove to speak, but Christian's hollow voice 
 Threatened his words ere they could leave his lip : 
 " Silence or death !" he thundered, " take your choice ; 
 You are my prisoner ; / command this ship !" 
 More dreadful than such words was the hurrah 
 That answered them, and swelled the broken law 
 Now running riot in Bligh's cabin, where 
 Until that hour the meekest words were used with care. 
 
THE MUTINY. 43 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 How cautious once of his attentive ear 
 The sailor's voice, chanting some old sea song 
 To make the lonely night-watch seem less drear ! 
 For he had curbed it when his arm was strong ; 
 Now it had spurned control, and fierce and loud 
 It rose in mockery o'er the prostrate proud. 
 But Christian calmed the breakers round the wreck — 
 Eestrained the violent, and hurried Bligh on deck. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The mists were slumbering still' on ocean's breast ; 
 But in the cold gray east the Morn was up. 
 Slow comes Aurora, clad in violet vest. 
 Buds in her hair, and in her hand a cup 
 Brimful of dew, to fertilize the way 
 And scatter pearls before the path of Day, 
 At whose advance she wakens Life, and sings 
 On the mountain tops, and fills the woods with utterings. 
 
44 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Then smile the landscapes, then the waters dance 
 And sparkle in the beams they mirror hack ; 
 The fawns forsake their copsewood howers and prance 
 Exuberant with life among the brake ; 
 The wild flowers open to the wild bee's hum, 
 The happy herds to village pastures come ; — 
 The Earth throws off her dream-robes, bathes in light. 
 And clothes herself afresh in garments green and bright. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 'Tis so on land, when summer-morning rays 
 Revisit peaceful haunts by wood and wold ; 
 But oft at sea Aurora veils her face. 
 And Dawn from out the brine emerges cold, 
 Glimmering aslant the shipwrecked on their raft. 
 Or the pale tumult of some lawless craft. 
 Such as the Bounty showed that heavy morn, 
 When Bligh appeared on deck by armed mutiny borne. 
 
THE MUTINT. 45 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The Bounty's deck, the stage of discipline 
 Which he had paced so long with lordly look, 
 Burst on him now with no accustomed sign : 
 Here, by the hoats, stood armed a gloomy group, 
 There, by the wheel, a bayonet ruled the course ; 
 Friends were below, for round the hatchways force 
 Crossed icy cutlass blades, and round the deck 
 The few who were unarmed stood motionless, in check. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Trembling in that convulsed ship some there were 
 Who shunned the desperate deed, but said not nay 
 To what they neither could resist nor share ; — 
 Cowards, who cherished right but feared a fray ; 
 Peace loving men, who knew where violence ends ; 
 Haters of strife, its very meekest friends ! 
 They should have freely fought for Bligh's stern rule : 
 Eebellion is a fiend, and Tyranny but a fool. 
 
46 THE MUTINEEK3. 
 
 'Twas done ; the die was cast, resistance vain ; 
 And when he reached the deck, Bligh read his fate — 
 Or violent death, or lingering, on the main, 
 Perchance where Thirst and Madness for him wait, 
 With flaming throats and writhing snake-like forms, 
 Fiercest of demons, most prolonged of storms ! 
 A moment, and for once, he seemed dismayed, 
 Not at what Mutiny did — at what it left unsaid. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 It was but for a moment ; hope returned 
 As on the deck, his own, deposed he stood, 
 But not dishonoured ; from his glances turned 
 The looks of many who desired his blood ; 
 Fierce in a pack, they singly shunned his gaze, 
 And none save Christian looked him in the face : 
 For strong in might althougb they were, these men 
 Turned from the lion, Eight, when they had fired his 
 den. 
 
THE MUTINY. 47 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 He marked the averted look, the guilty shame, 
 And proudly soared above his threatened fate : 
 There still was time the common herd to tame — 
 " Hold men I" he cried, " hold ! it is not too late ; 
 Stand hy your duty and your Captain yet. 
 And what has happened — all I will forget 1" 
 Then wavered some ; a word, a moment more 
 Perchance had brought them back — but Christian shut 
 the door. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 He signed, and sharp steel glittered round Bligh's 
 
 head. 
 While Christian to his heart a pistol prest : — 
 A word, a blow, a touch, and he lies dead ! 
 The wish to live still struggled in Bligh's breast. 
 As Christian faced him, calm, collected, pale. 
 Their eyes met, and they read each other's tale ; 
 For thought is quick, and in that pause of strife 
 Both suffered many storms, and both fan over life. 
 
48 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 Looks often stand for words : the lover's loot 
 Tells all, and more tlian all the tongue can vouch ; 
 And who unmoved fixed sorrow's gaze can brook, 
 Or that of courage high ? e'en lions crouch 
 When man reflects his soul from out his eye ; 
 For mere brute force is weak when looked at nigh ; 
 And men, once friends, who combat to the death, 
 Eeproach far more with eyes than they defy with breath. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Thus Bligh reproachful looks at Christian flung — 
 Glances that seemed to say, " Hast thou forgot 
 My open hand which did belie my tongue ? 
 My acts were generous, though my words were not." 
 To which the look of Christian seemed to say — 
 " Deem'st thou my heart unwrung? I tell thee nay ! 
 Would thou hadst eased the cords I thus have riven ! 
 Go ; thou art but dethroned, and I have forfeit heaven !" ' 
 
THE MtTIKT. 49 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Then, hastily, a boat was launched, and those 
 Who, faithful to their captain and their king, 
 The better but the gloomier fortune chose, 
 Were warned away ; — such share Bligh's wandering 
 O'er desert seas in search of Law's green land. 
 While most take lot with Christian's lawless band : 
 Uncertain friends of both, confined below. 
 Are brought on deck, and some are forced with Bligh to 
 go. 
 
 XL. 
 
 The ship thus rid of dubious foe and friend. 
 Into the boat with many a hasty oath, 
 Some bags of bread and water-kegs they send. 
 And scanty store, repletion well might loath, 
 Of raw salt meat — treasure outweighing gold 
 To famished men ere all their tale be told — 
 And, half in pity, some one of the crew 
 To a departing mate arms and a compass threw. 
 
50 THE MUTINEERS, 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Immortal instrument ! magnetic hope ! 
 For ever pointing to the polar star ; 
 Unconscious, constant friend of those who grope 
 In darkness often where no beacons are ; 
 When heaven conceals its dome o'er oceans broad, 
 Thy mystic finger still points out the road, 
 And to the mariner, through clouds and night. 
 Thou rough set gem ! thy presence is perpetual light. 
 
 ' XLII. 
 
 (But who were they who first enthroned thy sway, 
 And free to boundless seas their sails unfurled ? 
 Did old Confucius launch thee from Cathay ? 
 And didst thou unrecorded sail the world — 
 Whilst History filled its gaps with centuries dead, 
 Whose ghosts still flit round Nimroud's ruins red — 
 Till Civilization woke from her long sleep, 
 And found thee. Compass, anchored old upon the deep ?) 
 
THE MUTINY. 51 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Without ttat compass, brief the winding race 
 Bligh with, his faithful few cast loose had run ; 
 They would have perished, leaving not a trace 
 Of where their place had been beneath the sun. 
 The desert sea whelms more than desert sand ; 
 The lowliest burial leaves its mark on land ; 
 But ocean's hillocks, by no tablets prest, 
 Eoll o'er the smothered slain, and e'en deny them rest ! 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 And now the launch of banished men is full — 
 Deep sunk and crowded with its human load. 
 Each as he takes his place scans the long pull 
 To which Despair points o'er the ocean broad, 
 And checks within him the impulsive tar. 
 The parting cheer wherever sailors are ; 
 But now, the old hurrah were worse than tame 
 From voices husky with despair or false with shame. 
 
 d2 
 
52 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Sullen and silent all were, save a few 
 Amongst the mutineers who jeered and mocked, 
 As from the ship the crowded launch withdrew. 
 Till all alone upon the sea it rocked, 
 Like a green branch rude torn from island oak ; 
 Slowly it left the ship, without a stroke, 
 For no one thought as yet about an oar. 
 Where all the aspect of a group of statues wore. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 They sat as spell-bound, gazing at the ship, 
 Which left them slowly, yet by far too fast. 
 With vacant stare, cold eye, and rigid lip. 
 Each looked as erst in bronze he had been cast — 
 Had been, and might return to what he was : 
 So petrifying seemed that solemn pause, 
 Wherein those men were lost in mournful maze, 
 And Hope her deathless poean round them ceased to 
 
THE MUTINY. 53 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 They watclied the sMp with looks already grown 
 Hungry and gaunt, as soon might grow their forms ; 
 i^ow first seemed ocean to them dread and lone, 
 Without a deck to hide from suns or storms; 
 Till Bligh's decisive voice, now welcome sound, 
 Like light of hope broke on their minds mist-bound — 
 " No longer gaze behind, lads, look before !" 
 They heard, awoke, and 'gan to ply the weary oar. 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 A distant island nestles like a cloud 
 On the horizon ; thither do they bend 
 Their way (with strokes not measured now and proud) 
 In the vain hope that j'^onder speck may lend 
 A breathing place ere all the main they try : 
 Alas ! to foes more savage still they fly, 
 And Suffering, waiting at Taffoa's Lsle,* 
 Shark-like shall track their path for many a horrid mile ! 
 
 * Where Bligli first landed, and was quickly attacked and driven off by tile 
 natives. 
 
54 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 xux. 
 Farewell, ye pale and melancholy brave I 
 Anhungered long, long burned by briny thirst, 
 Tlie sport of many a gale, of many a wave ; 
 You on whom wind and water did their worst, 
 Made gaiint your forms, but could not shake your 
 
 souls ; — 
 Go ; youre is not the fame the world extols : 
 Yet, though not rolled in blood such garments be, 
 Your rags waved o'er four thousand miles of conquered 
 sea.* 
 
 L. 
 
 Bligh gone, Bligh lost, awe struck the Mutineers, 
 And silence round the tall ship 'gan to float, 
 Subduing rude jests and ironic cheers 
 To anxious looks that long pursued the boat ; 
 The less it grew, the nearer loomed their fate, — 
 The further off, the more outcast their state ; 
 At length it dwindled to a glimmering speck. 
 Leaving the lonely Bounty now a moral wreck. 
 
THE MUTINY. 
 LI. 
 
 All ! never more may she return to port, 
 Nor homeward-bound pursue a liappy track ; 
 The silence of unmapped seas must she court, 
 And, staggering onward, never venture hack. 
 Henceforth her name upon the sailor's lip 
 Shall build the story of a phantom-ship, 
 Disowned by Neptune and pursued by storms, 
 And navigated by the damned in human forms ! 
 
in. 
 
 THE ISLANDS. 
 
Ill, 
 
 THE ISLAJJDS. 
 
 Pair Otaheite ! from Matavai's still bay 
 The balmy mists of a Pacific night 
 Eise and retire before the coming day, 
 And all thy shores awake to life with light. 
 Not as in sterner climes, where care-worn sleep 
 Shrinks from the leaden day, and noon-days creep 
 Through tapestries or rags, fair isle ! thy sun, 
 Emerging from the sea, beholds thy day begun. 
 
60 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 Not Cyprus, ruddy with Homeric wine 
 And gold-haired maids, nor Cythera's isle, so fair. 
 Nor yet Calypso's, garden of the Nine, 
 With thee, thou gushing island, might compare 1 
 When — ^now no longer slaves of discipline, 
 But mutinous outcasts of the weary brine — 
 Again the devious Bounty sadly bore 
 Europe's pale rovers to thy lazy, trusting shore. 
 
 Ah ! since that fatal day, Virginity 
 Has wept thy fall, where'er the dirgeful sea 
 Breaks on thy coral reefs, asking the sky 
 To give thee back what ne'er may come to thee — 
 Freedom for youth and healthfulness for age. 
 Go, henceforth, ask vain Science to assuage 
 The woes of luxury, the crimes of gold. 
 And solve the secrets Learning asks — and leaves untold! 
 
THE ISLANDS. 61 
 
 When Bligh and law were fairly left behind, 
 And the horizon shut out hope and home, 
 The Bounty gave to the uncertain wind 
 Her trembling canvas, doubtful where to roam. 
 " For Otaheite ho !" at first the cry ; 
 But Christian urged a lonelier isle to try. 
 The crew demurred, but mind still ruled the day, 
 And Christian set the "course direct for Toobouai. 
 
 II. 
 It was a lonely island, as he knew. 
 Its name yet strange to European ear. 
 And natives mild dwelt there, and bread-fruits grew; 
 There might they rest secure for many a year ; 
 Whereas Tahiti's shores, though quickly found. 
 Would in the' end to them prove hunted ground : 
 Some ship from England there might wake them rude 
 From trance of false security and solitude. 
 
62 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Soon Toobouai appeared, and there, at first, 
 The strangers were received with open arms 
 By the mild natives, who till then had nursed 
 A dream of peace subject to few alarms. 
 Save such, like passing gales, as left them fast ; 
 Now to be broken by a fiercer blast — 
 The reckless licence, or the drunken wrath, 
 Too oft through virgin isles has tracked the white man's 
 path. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Like famished wolves the sailors rushed on shore, 
 To gorge themselves with all the passion -fruits 
 That Otaheite yielded them before. 
 Kum casks were broached, and men transformed to 
 
 brutes ; 
 Then drunken satyrs leered, and little loath, 
 Tabooai's maids translated each love oath : 
 Forgotten lay the anchored ship, unmanned, 
 Whilst Pleasure rioted and Discord raged on land. 
 
THE ISLANDS. Q^ 
 
 V. 
 
 Days passed in riot, and short weeks flew by, 
 During the which that island saw strange sights ; 
 Its days awoke to lust and revelry. 
 And saturnalia scared its ancient nights ; 
 Nights sacred once to silence and to rest. 
 Now broken by an unaccustomed guest — 
 The drunkard's chorus, or Azs maniac laugh 
 Who, maddened long by rum, at length longed blood to 
 quaff ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 Soon blood was shed, and then the savage rose, 
 Being no white man's slave, and rushed to arms. 
 Then loves and welcomes turned to hates and blows, 
 Then revelries were swallowed in alarms ; — 
 Those outraged islanders were strong and brave, 
 And Toobouai had proved the rover's grave. 
 Had Christian's sleepless eye been heavy when 
 Their squadrons marshaled dark to immolate his men. 
 
64 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Sad, silent he had been since they began 
 Their orgies on that shore ; for well he knew 
 To stem the tide were vain whilst riot ran 
 Its foaming race : he rather shunned the crew. 
 But now, when hazard dire again loomed near. 
 He reassumed his sovereignty o'er fear : — 
 Sobered by danger, Eiot hails its chief, 
 As guilty pleasure ends in self imposed grief. 
 
 vni. 
 And he stepped in as a deliverer, 
 Nor asked, but straight resumed his stern command. 
 Eeminding his companions what they were — ■ 
 Without him a confused and powerless band — 
 Arming a few, he made the rest obey, 
 And just in time to shun the gathering fray, 
 Whose suddenness had well nigh S0aled their doom, 
 With haste he thrust the crew back to their floating 
 tomb. 
 
THE ISLANDS. 65 
 
 IX. 
 
 Like to a floating tomb indeed she was, 
 That ship the Bounty, as away she bore, 
 Freighted with angry men and broken laws, 
 And chased by curses from Topbouai's shore ! 
 Armed, furious natives to the headlands came, 
 liike hunters dark defrauded of their game ; 
 Their yells of cheated vengeance- charged the air : 
 The rovers have escaped ! but is their land-wind fair? 
 
 X. 
 
 Ah no ! in vain soft gales the tall sails swell ; 
 Vain the charmed cry now, " Otaheite ho I" 
 For Discord, fatal witch ! has cast her spell 
 Across the way that mutiny must go. 
 Christian commands again — at what a cost ! 
 Conflicting voices bait him at his post : 
 The most for Otaheite, others cry— 
 " The sea, the rover's sea! black flag and piracy!" 
 
 E 
 
66 TUK MUTINEERS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Those desp'rate men, they had but changed their Bligh : 
 True, Christian seemed not, hut he was severe. 
 And there was something in his cold gray eye 
 That stagger'd those who sought to meet it near ; 
 Not fierceness, not deep thought — calm force of mind ; 
 That shaded light, that image undefined 
 Which in the look heroic deep doth dwell. 
 Holding the vulgar with an inadvertant spell. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Among the officers were one or two 
 Irresolute men, all along sick at heart, 
 Who often whispered, what was partly true, 
 That in the mutiny they had ta'en no part 
 Save what had been thrust on them in the dark : 
 Accomplices they were not ; was the mark 
 Of guilt on them because a luckless hour, 
 An accident, had put the ship in Christian's power ? 
 
THE ISLANDS. hi 
 
 XIII. 
 
 No ; ihej were innocent — or so they said, 
 And as they wished so did they half believe. 
 Of the less reckless now they were the head, 
 Plotting, as 'twere, for mutiny's reprieve ; 
 Deeming their case not quite so desperate, 
 Whate'er might be of others the dire fate, 
 They talked of England, of a trial fair. 
 Of superseding Christian — there they paused; who dare? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But Christian read these men : The boatswain's pipe 
 Pierced through the ship ; then up the hatcfiways 
 
 swarmed 
 The hive of motley human hornets, ripe 
 For some new flight ; fierce looking, half alarmed. 
 The men and officers a painter's group 
 To Christian shewed, who eyed them from the poop ; 
 Then on rough lips died many a reckless jest. 
 And still and grave were all, whom Christian thus 
 addressed : — 
 
68 
 
 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 " Messmates, this sHp was built to sail strange seas, 
 And I — so fate ordained it — I, for one. 
 Was born to share her varied destinies. 
 The past I need not speak of; it is gone. 
 My lads, I was not fashioned for a tool ; 
 Let who will play the coward or the fool ; 
 The sterner stuff, who mean with me to roam. 
 Must swear to day this oath — never to whisper home. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " As to the rest — those who were quick to fan 
 The spark that but for me had never flamed. 
 Yet shrank from danger when the work began, 
 And who are now of all the past ashamed — 
 Why, such are free to go ; I have no need 
 Of men who dare not follow, cannot lead : 
 But let those speak who by the ship will stay. 
 And swear to follow where I lead, and to obey !" 
 
THE ISLANDS. C9 
 
 XVII. 
 
 At length the crew spake ; most were for return — 
 Return, which way or how they scarcely knew ! 
 The cheerful fires by homes and hearths that burn 
 Grew lurid as their fancies round them drew ; 
 They felt how hard, alas ! again to find 
 Are home and happiness once left behind ; 
 But sick of cruising on the mutinous wave. 
 
 They yearned for some green land, e'en should it prove 
 a grave. 
 
 xvni. 
 " For Otaheite ho 1" again they cried 
 (For England ho ! it stuck fast in their throats), 
 And this time Christian to the call replied 
 Grimly, as one on coming wrath who gloats — 
 " Yes, be it so ; for Otaheite bear ; 
 Let all who mean desertion leave me there. 
 And meet pursuit they might have shunned ; while we 
 
 Who by the ship remain, will live or perish free !" 
 
7U THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The isle where joy hath promised them abode 
 Rises again from out the waters blue ; 
 'Tis Otaheite, where so late they rode 
 At anchor long — but every thing seems new. 
 They stare like hunters chasing phantom game; 
 In them the change, Tahiti is the same. 
 The cup of pleasure still invites return, 
 But guilty glamour shapes it like a funeral um. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The joyful natives round the rovers press 
 With welcome warm, yet wondering as they miss 
 Eemembered faces, 'mongst the crew now less. 
 There some dark maid recalls his parting kiss 
 Who promised to return, but is not here. 
 And sheds the impulsive quickly-drying tear ; 
 Here, by his native name, some savage tall 
 Upon his brother white unanswered long doth call. 
 
THE ISLANDS. 71 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Surrounded by his wives, the old Otoo ^ 
 Bade Christian welcome, and for Bligh inquired, 
 Whereat a shadow darkened all the crew, 
 And Christian, ere he answered, quick respired. 
 Am I my 'brother's keeper I crossed his brain, 
 And a wild glance 'he darted o'er the main. 
 Then with a subtle smile he gave reply, 
 First signing to his men to indorse his specious lie. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 And thus he told his preconcerted tale : — 
 " Soon after they had left Tahiti last, 
 A tempest whelmed them, and a ship, full sail. 
 Bore straight upon them ; soon the tempest passed. 
 And from the strange ship, wonderful to say I 
 An aged man, most mystical and gray. 
 With something more than human in his look, 
 On board the Bounty came — and lo ! 'twas Captain Cook ! 
 
72 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 The sea-cMef, Cook, long lost, returned again, 
 
 Eeturned from higher worlds to visit men ! 
 
 He stood upon the deck, and at his nod 
 
 The winds were hushed, as if they owned a god. 
 
 A westward course he told them to pursue. 
 
 To carry sail till they saw mountains blue 
 
 Eise from the sea, like castles built in air ; 
 
 These marked the great chief's resting place, and there 
 
 His spirit brooded, though himself unseen, 
 
 Over a fairy island, ever green ; 
 
 Its name was Toobouai ; there would they find 
 
 Unfinished projects he had left behind : 
 
 These Bligh and Christian, his adopted sons, 
 
 Were to complete 
 
 They bowed before him ; then the breeze awoke, 
 For he upraised his hand. No more he spoke ; 
 But signing in the air a mystic name, 
 He vanished in a sudden tempest as he came." 
 
THE ISLANDS. 73 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 He paused, as exclamations of surprise 
 Fell from the old Otoo, and half the host 
 Of circling natives who, with upturned eyes, 
 Eeceived this story of a dead man's ghost 
 In earnest awe and pious meek belief. 
 They owned a god in Cook, the white sea-chief, 
 And saw in Christian his adopted son, 
 Commissioned to complete what Bligh had now begun. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Marking the wished effect with scornful glee 
 (For now at heart he loathed the human kind, 
 In whom his darkling fancy less could see 
 God's image, than forked tools of impulse blind, 
 Of which he owned two kinds — they that deceive. 
 And those deceived), Christian a sigh did heave ; 
 An inward sigh, and thus resumed his tale, 
 While half a blush of shame recrossed his features pale-^- 
 
74 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXT. 
 
 " Cook's spirit was obeyed, and Toobonai, 
 The hallowed isle that holds his sacred clay, 
 Was sought and found ; it was a blest abode — 
 What else could be the dwelling of a god ? 
 There Bligh had landed what they had in store, 
 And sent back Christian with the -ship for more. 
 highly honoured was the Otoo's land I 
 And the great sea-chief loved it surely well, 
 Else Christian were not there the tale to tell. — 
 For live stock and provisions he had come : ' 
 
 Some dozens hogs, some goats, and dried fish, some 
 Bread-fruits especially, and plantains, and — 
 What ready store in fact there was at hand. 
 If promptly these the Otoo now would send. 
 Immortal Cook would still remain his friend. 
 And Christian, soon again from Toobouai 
 Returning thence, would more than all repay : 
 
THE ISLANDS. 75 
 
 In proof of whicli some officers and men 
 Here, at Tahiti, would remain till then ; 
 While those he deemed of honour worthiest, 
 The Otoo might distinguish from the rest 
 Of his chief subjects, female both and male. 
 That they with Christian in the ship might sail 
 To Toobouai, Bligh's happy settlement ; 
 There would they learn what joy and what content 
 Went with great Cook's adopted sons where'er they 
 went!" 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 It took not long, for willing hearts and hands 
 Amongst Tahiti's children, low and high, 
 Eejoicing sprang to answer the demands 
 Christian had made as in the name of Bligh, 
 And that of Cook himself — poor souls, they thought 
 The great chief's spirit smiled on what they brought ! 
 And, all things furnished without stint or price, 
 The Bounty lay revictualed ere the sun set thrice. 
 
76 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 When the fourth morning sun again did light 
 Day's beacon fires on hills round Matavai, 
 Ere yet the valleys ceased to harbour night, 
 Once more the restless ship was under weigh ; 
 And seemed she, as her topsails slow unfurled 
 And trembling filled to waft her from the world, 
 Like some old pirate, last of a fierce race. 
 Condemned to rove and rot, still spurning land and 
 grace. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Then, thronging to the shore's extremest brink, 
 In crowds the natives came, and with them some 
 Wbo swore with mutiny to swim or sink, 
 When prompted first by passion or by rum ; 
 Twice malcontents, theynow refuse to rove, 
 Thinking to hide in some Taheitan grove 
 The guilt they fain would shun ; but it will speak 
 There, as in that lone Patmos Christian goes to seek. 
 
THE ISLANDS. 77 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 He goes ; but few are they who with him go ; 
 Of the late crew eight iron men, and one, 
 One ofScer,^ but one ! And is it so ? 
 Thou master spirit of them all, that won 
 The throw none else dared tempt — what! have they all 
 Deserted thee on whom they once did call ? 
 Ha ! 'tis the world-old fate of all first men : 
 Go ; get thee, guilty Timon, to thine ocean den ! 
 
 XXX. 
 
 And as for them — the eighteen natives gay. 
 Six men and women twelve, poor dupes ! who sail 
 With Christian, as they deem for Toobouai — 
 Soon shall they rue their faith in lying tale. 
 When from a lonelier isle they scan the sea, 
 And envy winds and waves that wander free. 
 Perchance on the horizon oft shall rise 
 The mirage of their youthful homes to their fixed eyes. 
 
78 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Lo ! vague the Bounty in the distance looms, 
 To those who watch her long and anxiously 
 From Otaheite's hills, till she becomes 
 A glancing speck perplexing to the eye. 
 So Christian sees from deck the island fade, 
 Till on the sea it lies the faintest shade 
 Of a horizon cloud : and now 'tis gone. 
 And Christian, far at sea, with grim thought walks alone. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Like some forgotten gem, lost long ago 
 When parting oceans strayed to woo strange stars. 
 Upon the ungarnered depths it still lies. Lo ! 
 Centuries, shadowy forms on stately cars. 
 Sail past it, voiceless, motionless and blind. 
 And countless generations of mankind 
 Pass by, but yonder vestal island lone 
 I'ondcTs not whence they came or whither they have gone. 
 
THE ISLANDS. 79 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 From it no wondrous eyes have, glistening, seen 
 Millions of mornings, slowly dawning, rise 
 From ocean's bed, so cold, so gray, so green, 
 So blue — ^fit mirror of the changeful skies ! 
 And myriad suns glow, culminate and set, 
 Where earthly and celestial painting met : 
 Unmarked the moons that walked its heavenly heighfe. 
 And the still starry grandeur of its countless nights ! 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Since first a rugged reeflet, low and bare, 
 Peering from out the bosom of the flood, 
 It slow emerged from ocean into air, 
 And solitary saw the cloud-waves scud 
 Athwart the skies, so like new seas above, 
 Till now, adorned with many a stately grove, 
 It stands a green cathedral, coral-aisled, — 
 None saw its masonry atom on atom piled. 
 
80 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Whence came its deep foundations, anchored firm ? 
 The ocean worms that span it, where are they ? 
 Like men they died Tyhen each had served its term— 
 Ephemora yielding rock instead of clay ! 
 Whence came the mould that clothed its rocks with 
 
 earth? 
 Whence came the seed that gave its verdure birth ? 
 And whence the rill that watered plant and flower ? — 
 Can human Knowledge tell, with all its vaunted Power? 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Long, long imtrodden by a human foot, 
 Oft have its verdures renovations known ; 
 Its withering flowers and its decaying fruit 
 To stormy skies and angi-y seas been strown ; 
 Its hills and vales, adorned with nodding trees. 
 Have harboured nothing save the passing breeze, 
 And yon wild solitary bird, whose rest 
 Is oftener on the tempest cloud or billow's breast. 
 
THE ISLANDS. 81 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 A bloodless world, an Eden, sinless long! 
 Creation's jewel placed beyond man's reach ! 
 Old to the sun and stars hath risen its song — 
 Eloquent silence, inarticulate speech ! 
 Long answering to the voice of waters round, 
 Its caverned shores have held discourse with sound, 
 In echoed accents, musically wild, 
 Now loud as wrath, now low as breath of slumbering 
 child. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Still breaking on its rock-ribbed boundaries — 
 Fit borders for a garden of the brine — 
 The ambitious waves assail in foam the skies. 
 And ride the winds, till all their spray-clouds shine 
 In rainbow canopies, that. seem to guard 
 This Eden of the sea, as yet unmarred, 
 Like older isles, by man's carnivorous tread, 
 False hopes, departed joys, and memories of the dead ! 
 
82 
 
 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Nor fire, nor sword, black Pestilence, fierce Crime, 
 Cold Poverty, gaunt Famine, cruel Pain — 
 The hounds of Fate that track man's march o'er time ; 
 Nor love of woman, glory, power and gain — 
 The glittering gewgaws that bestrew his path ; 
 Not one of these in yonder lone world hath 
 Devoured a victim or inspired a dupe ! 
 Oft though the storms of heaven did wrathful round it 
 swoop — 
 
 XL. 
 
 Yet oftener, in the passing ages all, 
 Silence embraced it as a swaddling vest ; 
 The voiceful ocean's ceaseless rise and fall 
 Was like the heaving of a mother's breast ; 
 The hollow numbers that the breakers keep, 
 The lullabies that rocked its infant sleep ; 
 Nor did the moaning concert of the blast 
 Disturb its virgin dreams — too pure for aye to last ! 
 
THE ISLANDS. 83 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Hush I from the silence of primeval sleep, 
 A sigh, as of a slumberer rudely woke, 
 Vibrates athwart the undulating deep ! 
 Say, has some tuneful string of nature broke ? 
 See ! round the abode of pristine solitude 
 The sea-bird, circling still in search of food, 
 Pauses and poises long on quivering wings, 
 As scanning from afar new and mysterious things. 
 
 . XLir. 
 , Is it the tempest, rising slowly grand 
 On the horizon, gathering in its lines 
 Till a red cloud, no bigger than a hand, 
 The fury of its phalanx-charge confines ? 
 Or some new monster of the watery wild 
 Arriving strange from further seas exiled*' 
 That fascinates yon tenant of the air. 
 Like desert vulture scenting carnage from a6ir. 
 
 f2 
 
84 THE MUTINEERS. ' 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Less thaoQ an infant's hand, a low white cloud 
 Far on the sea its soaring ken may scan ; 
 Not the precursor of the tempest loud, 
 But the white silent wings whereon comes man ; 
 The Bounty's sails, not pure as once they were, 
 But still in sunny distance glancing fair, 
 Though battered now and soiled, sore strained and torn. 
 Like the hearts onward still beneath their shadows borne. 
 
 XLlt. 
 
 She comes, she comes ! lo, perched upon the mast, 
 A briny hermit, hairy, bronzed, and lean, 
 Balancing, bird-like, scans the watery vast ! 
 And, ever as the wave retreats between, 
 On the horizon gloats with fervid gaze ; 
 Then, tremulously loud, the cry doth raise — 
 " Land ho ! on the lee bow — land ho I land ho 1 
 Thank God ! we near it now — but how slow,I how 
 slow!" 
 
THE ISLANDS. 85 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Now, isle of Pitcairn ! echoes new shall wake 
 Thy slumbers, bosomed in the murmuring surge ; 
 Thy star-domed solitudes new shapes shall take. 
 And awe-girt forms from out thy groves emerge ; — 
 Tender as tunes that move the soul to tears, 
 Dreadful as cries affrighted Afric hears, 
 The voice of Man shall break Oblivion's spell. 
 And Immortality stand where shadows long did dwell ! 
 
IT. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT. 
 
IV. 
 THE SETTLEMENT. 
 
 Day sinks exhausted on tbe wave, and Eve 
 With soft short tropic step foreruns the nigh-t, 
 Scarefe greeting Nature ere she takes her leave. 
 The galaxies their kmps hegin to light ; 
 The sun lies buried in the sea a while, 
 And darkneSB canopies now Fitcairn's Isle : 
 Majestic vastness eircles it once more, 
 But not primeval peace and silence, as before. 
 
90 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 Seen through retiring evening's thickening veil, 
 Clouds of red smoke rise from the narrow creek, 
 Where, mingling with the surf, the sea-birds wail. 
 Scared from the rocky perch they love to seek 
 When the red sun reclines upon the flood ; — 
 Start into fitful light shore, crag, and wood. 
 As flames dart forth in many a pointed spire 
 From yonder stranded pile — a ship, a ship on fire ! 
 
 Befitting seems the voluntary doom 
 Of that old ship on Pitcairn's silent strand — 
 Portentous meteor, deepening nature's gloom ! 
 A Cain-hark, she long wandered with the brand 
 Of mutiny upon her wrinkled prow, 
 Finding no rest, no peacefal haven ; and now 
 Her living ashes to the winds are given, 
 By the avenging fire Prometheus stole from heaven. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 91 
 
 So perishes the Bounty : nought remains 
 Of her, her pride, her guilt, her wanderings, 
 Save the lost Adams Pitcairn now contains. 
 O'er them dread Night twice shakes her sable wings ; 
 Twice deepening shades usurp the isle's green peaks ; 
 The stars strew far the sea with glimmering streaks; 
 The midnight winds forget to fan the main. 
 And all, except man's throbbing heart, is still again. 
 
 I. 
 When, like a wounded steed with staggering gait, 
 The Bounty neared the end of her long race. 
 Christian once more defied his threatened fate ; 
 For he had found at last a hiding place — 
 A verdant isle, unnoted and unknown. 
 Where all save breathing life to strength had grown : 
 The guardian surf lashed the steep shores around, 
 And long he searched before one narrow cfeek he found. 
 
92 THE MUTINEER?. 
 
 II. 
 
 Here he resolved to strand the Bounty straight,^ 
 Finding no anchorage or haven where she 
 Might lie and safely land her living freight. 
 Too weaMy manned further to tempt the sea, 
 And dreading lest some adverse gale,, or some 
 Changed purpose of the crew, might sudden come 
 Betwixt him and his sole left hope the while, 
 At once he rushed the ship on the rock-guarded isle. 
 
 in. 
 Borne on the summit of the full flood tide, 
 The Bounty closed her course with one wild leap ; 
 Her torn sails swelling in their last pale pride, 
 She rushed into the narrow inlet steep ; 
 Three times she struck, three times survived the shock. 
 Staggered through boiling surf and pointed rock ; 
 Each breaker heaved her higher on the beach, 
 And ebb-tide left her dry beyond the ocean's reach. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 93 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then leaping on the shore — they should have knelt, 
 But danger past the stiff knee rarely bends — 
 The breathless sailors told the joy they felt, 
 Embraced each other like long parted friends. 
 And in the gladness of their fresh reprieve 
 From death, swore new allegiance to their chief ; 
 He who was calm when they betrayed alarm, 
 Wearing the priceless spell no danger can discharm. 
 
 V. 
 
 And turning from the sea, with eager gaze 
 They scanned the verdant isle, their future home ; 
 And wandering far, with often halting pace. 
 Through mimic vast savannas did they roam ; 
 To forests, almost endless, seemed to spread 
 The pathless woods across the isle that lead ; 
 The hills seemed mountains, Edens seemed the glades, 
 And the meandering rills most glorious cascades ! 
 
94 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 As prisoners released from bondage dark 
 To double brigbtness and a world refound, 
 So did Tahiti's children disembark, 
 Snatched from the yawning caverns of the drowned ; 
 And as they, too, about the island strayed, 
 Drank the pure streain that cooler made the shade. 
 And clomb the cliffs where plants familiar grew, 
 And round whose reef-chained base lagoons laved cool 
 and blue — 
 
 VII. 
 
 They deemed such scenes were more than half as fair 
 As those that smiled on their nativity ; 
 And said Toobouai (thinking they were there) 
 Lay scarce less lovely betwixt sea and sky 
 Than Otaheite — where already they 
 Wished almost they were-^)ack, no more to stray — 
 But memory fond, turned to prophetic dread, 
 When they perceived the isle was uninhabited. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 95 
 
 VIII. 
 
 At first they questioned Christian anxiously, 
 Of Bligh, Cook, and Toohouai's settlement ; 
 But when he gave them nothing in reply. 
 Save scornful looks, like daggers at them sent, 
 The truth dawned on them — that they were deceived — 
 And rending sighs their gentle bosoms heaved : 
 Again they clomb the clififs above the bay. 
 And sat long gazing where they deemed Tahiti lay. 
 
 IX. 
 
 There wept they, till ghost-bringing night did creep 
 Over the wave, that leapt to catch their tears — , 
 Such tears as only wandered children weep — 
 Till with the waning light fast waxed their fears. 
 Demons seemed lurking in the shadows tall. 
 And all around loomed preternatural : 
 Appalled they start, but whither shall they flee ? 
 Betwixt the frowning isle and the far-moaning sea ! 
 
96 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 X. 
 
 The rambling crew, by Christian urged, repair 
 Back to the ship, firm bedded in the sand ; 
 They count their living freight with miser care, 
 And, chaunting at their work, they quickly land. 
 Half drowned but living still, hogs, poultry, goats, 
 From Otaheite brought ; and then the boats — 
 All that are left, the cutter and the yawl — 
 Far up the creek's steep beach beyond tide-mark they 
 haul. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Next they secured, as of the utmost need. 
 The carpenter's tool-chest, arms, powder, lead, 
 What roots and fruits were left, a bag of seed, 
 A cask or two of biscuit and rusk-bread ; 
 Spare sails, a telescope, and hammocks nine ; 
 A small rum keg, a case or two of wine ; 
 And rolling out some loose casks of salt pork. 
 They rested on the second evening from their work. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 97 
 
 XII. 
 
 The spirit-room had not been touched as yet, 
 For jealously did Christian keep the key ; 
 Already had the men begun to fret, 
 And from their mood he plainly could foresee 
 When the great brimming casks ashore were rolled 
 Their thirsty license would not be controlled : 
 Christian had not forgotten Toobouai, 
 And till his men slept fast he watched i' the star-lit bay. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The embers through the gloom were glowing red, 
 Where the rough tars a careless fire had lit 
 By a felled tree piled round with brushwood dead : 
 The brand was ready, the occasion fit, 
 And Christian, with a grim smile on his lip, 
 Unlocked the spirit-room and fired the ship ! 
 The red wave o'er her goes — sleep, men, long sleep ! 
 For never shall ye break that prison of the deep ! 
 
98 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When morning dawned again, ship there was none. 
 Where late she lay, like some huge stranded whale, 
 A pile of ashes now remained alone ; — 
 Gone the brave bark that weathered many a gale; 
 And round her smoking bier, with nerveless frown 
 Upon their haggard features, grim and brown. 
 The horror-stricken sailors ghost-like stalked — 
 Wretches reprieved from death, but fast in prison locked ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 But yet, as bright and brighter dawned the day. 
 So fair that prison round them did expand 
 To grove-clad cliffs and grassy glades, that they 
 Forgot the jailer sea and bless' d the land ; 
 Where Nature woke, like Beauty from a trance, 
 'Mid rilly music and the utterance 
 Of wild woods shaking off their dewy calms, 
 And shadowy hills most eloquent with waving palms I 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 99 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And in the gladness of Day's matin hymn 
 Unconsciously they joined, and Hank despair, 
 Mutt'ring revenge, and silent horror grim, 
 Fled from their looks as demons from a prayer ; 
 And Christian, who had shunned them till their blood 
 Was cool — for well he knew their varying mood — 
 Just when they 'gan to wish for him, returned 
 And told them, now 'twas done, wherefore the ship he 
 burned. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " If (thus he spoke) some cruiser, passing by 
 This rock-ribbed isle by guarding breakers bound, 
 The stranded Bounty from afar should spy, 
 A clue to our retreat would theu be found ; 
 And it is wise to leave no trace or track, 
 That none may come, where none can venture back. 
 And then, the spirit-stores are well away — 
 We had enough of drunkenness at Toobouai." 
 
 g2 
 
100 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 They heard in silence ; answered not, but gat 
 Each on his wand'ring way where'er he list. 
 Some clomh the hills and on their summits sat, 
 Watching the sea till their eyes swam in mist ; 
 Some dived into the woods, without a road 
 To cross the island where it was least broad ; 
 While, as their wont at home was morn and noon. 
 The island children swam long in the blue lagoon. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Thus the first weeks of their new life were spent 
 In pensive wanderings or soft repose. 
 Inquiring eyes about the island went. 
 And each new day new landscapes did disclose ; 
 The hours, once weary long, now swiftly flew ; 
 Silence and solitude familiar grew ; 
 The mild Taheitans half their fears forgot, 
 And e'en the Mutineers ceased to deplore their lot. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 101 
 
 XX. 
 
 Besides the seven, who composed the crew 
 That in the Bounty left Tahiti last, 
 One officer, alone to Christian true, 
 Joined in the final lot that Mutiny cast : 
 Young was his name ^ — a pensive silent youth ; 
 A mixture strange of passion and of ruth ; 
 The sport of friendship and romantic dreams, 
 And, in whate'er he did, delighting in extremes. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 At times he seemed a man, at times a boy ; 
 Having the one's grave strength and firmness, and 
 The other's restlessness, without his joy ; 
 One of those beings hard to understand — 
 Susceptible, impulsive, shy, cold, kind ; 
 Storms, calms and rainbows canopied his mind ; 
 Genius had breathed, in melancholy mirth, 
 Perchance too softly, as she passed, upon his birth. 
 
102 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 His form was rudely graceful, and his air 
 More pensive than commanding ; round his head 
 In deep gold ringlets flowed his auburn hair ; 
 Though statuesque, his features were not dead, 
 For answering to thought's quick ehb and flow, 
 Full many a changeful tide did o'er them go ; 
 While, sadly bright, the lustres of his eyes 
 Hung in a firmament as blue as Pitcairn's skies. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 For him the wakeful dreams of boyhood's days — 
 The Crusoe reveries of lonely rest 
 Once reveled in by Doon-like banks and braes. 
 Or where sits Caledonia in the west 
 Enthroned on rugged isles (for he was born 
 Where sounding Mull by whirlpool tides is worn, 
 And Morven's mountains dark in mists do dwell 
 With Fingal's spirit tall, as giant legends tell) — 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 103 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The pictured scenes that clothed the barren rock 
 With fragrant groves, and through the long dark 
 
 storms 
 Of northern winters in soft sunshine broke, 
 Were not mere fantasies and airy forms ; — 
 Visions that folded oft his schoolboy arms 
 Were here revealed in less ideal charms ; 
 And the rapt son of Caledonia found 
 In Pitcairn's trackless isle no first enchanted ground. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Like others in the Bounty, he bad felt 
 The goad of Bligh's stem rule enter his soul ; 
 Yet no rebellion in his spirit dwelt, 
 For deeper sorrow held it in control ; 
 His hate to melancholy soon decayed. 
 His pride or passion shrank from all parade ; — 
 Deep lay his Highland springs, and lonely flowed 
 Through mountains unexplored and glens where mists 
 abode. 
 
104 
 
 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Christian had dimly read this being, and 
 Long fanned in vain his native pride and ire, 
 Playing on strings time was had met his hand ; 
 At length, at friendship's call, the Gael took fire, 
 And Young partook the deed by Christian done. 
 Romance took up what friendship had begun. 
 And charmed Misanthropy, not coward flight, 
 Brought to Pitcaim at least one willing anchorite. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 An anchorite, so young! the twentieth year 
 Of his impTilsive life had scarce all flown, 
 And yet its May had fallen into the sear. 
 What withering sorrow had his young heart known. 
 That, ere the morning of his day was done, 
 Shadows of evening gathered round his sun ? 
 What settled sadness turned the strong youth pale ? 
 Say, was it unrequited love — the oft told tale ? 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 105 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Too true I there was a girl — ah, she was fair ! 
 In Highland hall fair, once too fair, was she, 
 When first the sailor boy beheld her wear 
 Some trinket he had brought from 'yond the sea ; 
 For her he brought the gem from far Cathay, 
 And— =-ah, that beauty thoughtlessly should slay ! — 
 His earnest love-gift she received in jest. 
 And wore it, like his sparkling he^rt, upon her breast. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Her breast wherein another's image dwelt — 
 Not his, the sailor boy's, who vainly deemed 
 That she knew all, that she felt all he felt ; 
 At length the fatal truth upon him gleamed, 
 As scathing lightning the young oak doth rend — 
 Yes, he was dear to her — dear as a friend : 
 Oh ! colder than the seas that lock the pole, 
 Surged her pure crystal friendship o'er his sinking soul ! 
 
lOG THE MUTINKEES, 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Another came — ttat other whom she chose, 
 And led her to the altar : happy day, 
 For him who won the Caledonian rose ! 
 But he who lost her — whither shall he stray ? 
 It matters not ; the ocean wanders far. 
 And sets, for ever sets, his polar star ! 
 His home and kindred are forgotten names, 
 His life henceforth a sunless dream that memory claims. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 He joined the Bounty on her long, last cruise, 
 With a lorn smile saw Albion's cliffs grow dim ; 
 If any joy was left him, 'twas to muse 
 Long on his double watch — for sleep to him 
 Brought no unbroken rest — muse night and day 
 On her still loved, in Scotia far away : 
 His widowed heart communion held with none, 
 Till Christian's sympathetic art its utterance won. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 107 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Then, like a skilful tempter, Christian did 
 Mould the romantic youth to his dark ways ; 
 And though in vain, ah, all in vain ! he bid 
 Him Wot out that death only could erase, 
 Yet not in vain he did his ear engage 
 With tales of some lost island hermitage, 
 Where Buccaneers of old long laughed at law. 
 Mid scenes more beautiful than dreamy Turk ere saw. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 ) 
 And now, behold, the promise Christian made 
 
 To sad romance was not beyond earth's bound : 
 A garden wild on farthest ocean laid, 
 A lost oasis has been sought and found ; 
 Where he, the love-sick boy, may sigh and die. 
 Laid on the lap of pensive Poesy- 
 Deserted maid 1 whom once he wooed in jest, 
 Again, his mistress lost, fond partner of his rest. 
 
108 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Time flew on downy wings, and ttey began 
 In their fair banishment to dwell at ease, 
 Less daily dreading the pursuit of man ; 
 And all things wore awhile the garb of peace. 
 Halcyon days 1 each brighter than the last. 
 And all the sweeter for the dangers past ; 
 As evening looks most lovely when the storm 
 Eetires that clothed the day in many a frowning form. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 The island kingdom was divided soon 
 Into nine parts, to each white man a share. 
 The mild Taheitans neither claimed such boon 
 Nor were they offered heritages there ; 
 Already 'gan they feel the doom of race — 
 That barrier stern old Caucasus did place 
 Betwixt the black and white, their pride and love, 
 Which may not be o'erpassed till mountains do remove. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 109 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Babylon's mound and Egypt's pyramid, 
 And, more mysterious still, the ruins grand 
 In Mexipan old tangled forests hid. 
 Long ere the conquering Aztecs held that land ; 
 And ancient tumuli of Flat-head Eace — 
 Passed from the world where once it had a place ; — 
 These beckon on, sepulchral in their gloom, 
 Man's feeble races still, and prophecy their doom. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 In vain, though fain. Philanthropy would sing 
 Of aiding mercy and protecting law ; 
 Alas ! 'tis Destiny the knell doth ring 
 Of disappearing Ethiopia. 
 Yes ; Hope may plant Liberia's sickly tree, 
 And some short years of sunshine it may see ; 
 But in the storms of empires it will fade, 
 Like many a fairer plant that cagt a farther shade. 
 
110 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Then let rich sentimental Sorrow dry 
 Her eyes, unlovely red with weeping, sore 
 With hot tears, shed perhaps too partially ; 
 As if there were but one dark spot, no more. 
 On every white man's hand — the Negro's chain. 
 Or, if deep Mercy's font she needs must drain, 
 let her cast one look on suffering pale ! 
 Lend one — one freezing tear, to the cold homeless Gael ! 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Methinks I hear the ancient Coranach's moan 
 Rise on the wailing winds that sweep the seas 
 And the red heaths, all desolate now and lone, 
 Of thy dark isles, devoted Hebrides ! 
 And, hark ! the swelling dirge doth pass across 
 The harried main lands too, where thane-like Ross, 
 And ruin-razed, vice-regal Sutherland, 
 Like hunting-fields of old, depopulated standi 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. Ill 
 
 XL. 
 
 Wails the weird Coranach to the glens so drear ! 
 TAey give no echo back to that low dirge, 
 Which tells of living men no longer here — 
 Transported, sinless, o'er the Atlantic surge ! 
 Ah ! were there none to mark it, none to mourn 
 The natives poor from their old roof-trees torn ? 
 Yes ! they are pitied in the land they miss, 
 And Eetribution yet may ask. Who hath done this ? 
 
 XLI. 
 
 What was their crime, poor Albin's sons forlorn ! 
 That fire and force reft them of all they had ?^ 
 Their lowly huts and miser stripes of corn. 
 The hoarded peats that made their long nights glad ; — 
 Say, did they love such wealth without a right ? 
 Did Justice banish them, or cruel Might? 
 Was Scotland not their country ? Were thei/ slaves ? 
 Had thei/ no title-deeds ? — What ! not their fathers' 
 graves ? 
 
112 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLir. 
 
 Their fathers' storied graves ! Eeturn, return, 
 Ye feudal times I with all your lawless strife ; 
 Start, Clansman, from your desecrated urn ! 
 Your broadsword, though it slew, protected life ; 
 Let slogans loud repeople Albin's hills — 
 Give us back Chieftainship, with all its ills : 
 At least it sheltered man and fed the steer. 
 Where wasteful riot now the tyrannous* red deer ! 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Too late, too late ! the evicted native now 
 In far Canadian woods the axe doth ply, 
 On far, lone western prairie guides the plough ; 
 There nature grants, what man did here deny. 
 His right to live, his title to a grave. 
 Yes ; he perchance sleeps well beyond the wave. 
 His troubles o'er ; but think ye, guilty Thanes ! 
 His murdered memory will bless your red domains ? 
 
 * Tjra^Tious, because wherever the red deer ia encouraged, he expels the 
 natural tenant of these pastures— the mountain sheep. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 113 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Grod ! the day may come — (and yet forbid, 
 Forbid it, righteous Judge ! for here of yore, 
 
 , In shepherd chalet lone on mountain side, 
 In fisher hovel low by wild sea shore, 
 Sincerer than the Ducal in high hall. 
 Thy Gaelic children poor on Thee did call 
 To bless their country ; hear, hear their prayer ! 
 
 Invasion's ruthless foreign woe spare Britain — spare !) — 
 
 \ 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The day may come when the invader's tread 
 At length shall violate Britannia's shrines. 
 Long faithfully to peaceful virtues wed, 
 And foreign legions form in glittering lines 
 On Europe's hope, on Freedom's eldest soil ;— 
 Where then the rock that never knew recoil 
 Before the wave of war — the Celtic rock. 
 That foremost stemmed the tide of many a battle-shock ? 
 
 H 
 
114 TUE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 In vain shall terror call it to the breach ; 
 The Highland plume may come, the pageant red, 
 The look, the strut, all discipline can teach, 
 But not the kindred men whose fathers bled. 
 Conquered and bled, on many a storied field : 
 Though yesterday there stood, like Europe's shield. 
 Last of the Clans ! on Balaklava's height, 
 An Alpine stripe of steel * that stayed the Moscovite. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Soft months flew by, and time, unnoticed, sped, J 
 Till, weary grown of sunny idleness, 
 A change came o'er the dreamy life they led ; 
 And they began the virgin soil to dress. 
 Each raised his hut, enclosed a garden plot. 
 And sowed the seeds from Otaheite brought : 
 Thus idly built and fashioned by degrees, 
 A little village rose, embosomed deep in trees. 
 
 » The 934 Highlanaers. 
 
THE SKTTLRMF.NT. 115 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Most of the work, and all the toil, was done 
 By Otaheite's pensive children, who 
 Already saw their slavery begun : 
 They murmured not, but quietly bowed niito 
 The destiny they scarcely wished to fly. 
 As yet they missed not much sweet liberty ; 
 For still there was some sunshine in their lives, 
 Smiled on^by Pitcairn's constant skies — and by their 
 wives. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Their wives ! those dusky Eves, what fruitful woes 
 To Pitcairn's mimic world from them did spring ! 
 (Sure woman grafted thorns upon the rose — 
 'Twas the first flower to Adam she did bring 
 In Paradise) — at first their presence made 
 Lighter the burthens that the white men laid 
 
 On the Taheitans ; as if woman's will. 
 Inconstant as her love, ruled there for good or ill. 
 
 Ji2 
 
116 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 L. 
 
 There were twelve women on the isle, of whom 
 Six were the wives of the Taheitan men ; 
 And six were left — tut not in their dark bloom 
 To pine alone, unmated to remain ; 
 Ah, no ; too many eager suitors came. 
 Nine men there were six blushing brides to claim ; 
 And, to prevent contention, it was thought 
 By Christian best to wive the Mutineers by lot. 
 
 The lots were cast ; but Christian took no part, 
 Eestj-ained or by indifference or pride ; 
 Nor he, the victim of a wounded heart, 
 The chance for a Taheitan mistress tried. 
 Though many a glance the dusky houris stole 
 At his bright hair and blue eyes full of soul : 
 Young had a wife too constant to his mind, 
 A vision ever seen before him and behind. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. ] 17 
 
 LII. 
 
 Thus, of the seven men, one luckless swain 
 Was left in " single blessedness ;" and he 
 Contemplated his lonely lot with pain. 
 Aye as his luckier comrades he did see, 
 At mid-day lolling in the leafy shade, 
 Each with his dark Dalaiah by him laid. 
 Or strolling down the blue creek side by side, 
 He sighed, nor long in vain, for a Taheitan bride. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 He cast his glowing eyes upon the wife 
 Of a Taheitan, comlier than the rest. 
 And did the deed that ushered in more strife. 
 Till then the serfs had scarcely felt opprest, 
 But when their wives by the white men were ta'en, 
 They felt the dragging weight of all their chain, 
 And swore in secret, by their idols rude, 
 To bathe their fetters in their masters' lustful blood. 
 
118 THE MUTINEEKS. 
 
 I.IV. 
 
 It was a secret vow, to be concealed, 
 For still the white man's power did appal : 
 The rest were dumb, and only one did yield — 
 He whose wife first was stolen from him — all 
 To the fierce tempest that his bosom tore ; 
 As loud, too lond, by unclean gods he swore 
 To track his victims to some lonely bower. 
 And slay his faithless wife with her pale paramour. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Enough — he died ; and, as the white men thought, 
 His death extinguished disaffection's spark. 
 He, trembling wretch ! to Christian's hut was brought 
 And there, in presence of his brethren dark, 
 They hanged him like a dog. The awful sight 
 Struck the amazed Taheitans with affright, 
 And thenceforth with the meekness of the slave 
 To their white masters did they, seemingly, behave. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT. 119 
 
 LVI. 
 
 But in their heart of hearts there latent lay 
 The roots of vengeance black, which were to spring- 
 To bloody blossoms on a future day. 
 Meanwhile no woods to woodman's axe did ring ; 
 The loves and leisures of a vernal clime 
 Unbroken lingered, happy for a time. 
 Where lolled the lordly Mutineers at ease, 
 In that fair garden of the lonely Southern seas. 
 
THE INSUEKECTION. 
 
V. 
 THE INSURRECTION. 
 
 Vain man ! the mountains of thy fond desire 
 Stand fair before thee in life's rosy morn, 
 Their summits tipped with pure celestial fire, 
 Towering above earth's plains in glorious scorn ; — 
 Ambition whispers thee, and points the line, 
 The topmost gilded line that may be thine, 
 And up thou springest towards that glittering cope, 
 Already almost won upon the wings of Hope. 
 
124 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 But even as thou spurnest earth behind, 
 Leaving the vulgar plains, the peasant soil, 
 Noon, glaring noon, descends upon thy mind. 
 And as thou olimhest ardour turns to toil ; 
 And farther now at every step retreats 
 The crowning pinnacle thy fancy greets ; 
 Till, weary grown, thou lookest hack to scan 
 Despised vales, and lo ! the sun shines there on man. 
 
 The sun shines there on men whom thou didst leave, 
 Half pitying, scorning half, their lowly fate ; 
 But yonder they their mimic garlands weave, 
 And sing, although they early toil and late ; 
 And thou ! above them elevated now. 
 What dims thine eye, what clouds thy noble brow, 
 Clasps thy pale hands and heaves thy surcharged 
 breast ? 
 Is thy ambition toil — their lowliness their rest? 
 
THE IN3UEKECTI0N. 125 
 
 Why dost thou linger, fondly looking back 
 To yonder vales ? Why seem they now so bright ? 
 Why dost thou pause upon thine upward track- 
 Why cease to fix on utmost heights thy sight ? 
 What I do they seem less brilliant than before ? 
 Pale the bright early fires thou didst adore ? 
 And deemest thou thy brow had been more smooth 
 Hadst thou ne'er left the cot that bowered thy lowly 
 youth? 
 
 It may be so, but thou canst not return ; 
 Gulfs lie between thee now and thy birth-spot ; — 
 Pause not too long departed joys to mourn. 
 For had a cloister veiled thy shadowy lot, 
 Perchance thy passion-heart had wrestled lone 
 With toils more merciless than thou hast known. 
 Look not behind ; let action ease thy yoke. 
 And make thee half forget thy morning visions broke ! 
 
12G THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Unhappy they, who in meridian life, 
 
 With passions poisoned but yet all too warm, 
 
 Are cast out from the world, its stir and strife, 
 
 And left without a sunbeam or a storm 
 
 To charm or stir their flagging hearts at last — • 
 
 Chained to the mocking memory of the past ! 
 
 Such the dark lesson Christian had to learn : 
 
 Two years had passed, and still he watched in lone 
 Pitcairn. 
 
 11. 
 Ah, haughty hermit ; he was weary all 
 Of the false peace of his self-isought abode, 
 And oft in vain on action did he call 
 To ease his bosom of reflection's load ; 
 Panted again to sail horizoned seas, 
 Kage with the battle, battle with the breeze ; 
 And often gloated he, when winds did rave. 
 
 On the careering life that chased each foam-capped 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 127 
 
 in. 
 Across the island ran a mountain ridge, 
 At one side ending in a deep ravine, 
 Arched over by a narrow natural bridge. 
 Suspended like a wild festoon between 
 The sky above and the steep gorge below, 
 Where, when the tide was at the fullest flow, 
 A streamlet with the encroaching sea did make, 
 A while twice every day, a foaming inland lake-. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And midway up this ravine's steepest side, 
 There was a hanging cave, wherein recluse 
 Of old had chosen from the world to hide — 
 So apt it seemed for some romantic use ; 
 The natural bridge that spanned the chasm gave 
 A single access to this airy cave. 
 Its entrance overhung with foliage dense ; 
 A spot by nature formed for hidance or defence. 
 
128 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Here moody Christian sometimes used to dwell ^ 
 For days and weeks, and all alone ; none knew 
 What made him love that vocal cave so well, 
 Save melancholy Young, who strayed there too, 
 But stayed not long, for better did he love, 
 By wider grots that had the sky above, 
 Pensive to pace the shore when gray Dawn came, 
 Or " HeaiJerus, the lover's lamp " with silver flame. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Within this cave, where echo's rolling voice 
 To distant roar of breakers aye replied. 
 Till half unearthly seemed the booming noise, 
 As parted spirits wailing there did bide, 
 (Held by the blacks in superstitious dread). 
 Christian his couch of island grass had spread ; 
 And here, at times, wild lullabies he sought 
 From fear's foreboding watch or memory's frowning 
 thought. 
 
Tlin INSURRECTION. 129 
 
 VII. 
 
 And here he had laid up a secret store 
 Of ammunition and of salted food ; 
 And here it was (to Young he often swore) 
 He meant to die, if die he must in blood, 
 Like a tall antler'd stag at desp'rate bay, 
 Defending to the last the narrow way, 
 The natural bridge that to the cavern led. 
 Nor yielding to his captors aught save Christian dead. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 For still the fear did haunt his guilty mind, 
 That some just ship of war, cruising the vast 
 Of unmapped ocean, Pitcairn yet might find. 
 And drag them to their gibbet-doom at last : 
 The others might, but he would never yield, 
 ' While powder served or cutlass was to wield. 
 
 And sooth to say, had the dire chance been tried, 
 Christian from that high sconce a host might have defied. 
 
 I 
 
130 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But, ah ! not thus in combat close and hot 
 Was he to draw his last defiant breath ; 
 For him was woven a less glorious lot, 
 And, looming nearer now, obscurer death ;- 
 The armed justice that he most did fear 
 Was not to overtake the Mutineer ; 
 A swifter rebel-retribution bade - 
 Him perish of the anarchy himself had made. 
 
 In that lone isle, that far reef-guarded land, 
 Beautiful still, but disenchanted grown, 
 111 fared it now with the_Taheitan band. 
 Since first betwixt them and the whites was sown 
 The seed of discord, they had felt the goad 
 Of tyranny and borne oppression's load. 
 Time, woman still was prized as pleasure's too 1, 
 But slavery's cup for the Taheitan men was full. 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 131 
 
 xr. 
 
 Hewers of ■wood, drawers of water, they 
 Were sorely toiled and beaten cruelly. 
 There was no sunshine in their long, long day, 
 And oft on night and darkness did they cry 
 To hide them from reproach and bring them rest ; 
 Then sleep peopled awhile the earth they prest 
 With happy forms, and they were visited 
 By soft Taheitan dreams of days for ever fled. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Then would their faithless wives and early loves 
 Eeturn to them ; and in sleep's reveries 
 They saw Tahiti's shores, saw freedom's groves ; 
 Again rejoicing skimmed the rippling seas 
 That in their native bay, so blue, did woo 
 When day declined, the fisherman's canoe, 
 And heard, remembered well, the plaintive stave 
 To which their paddles wont to stir the moon-lit wave. 
 
 i2 
 
132 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But ever as they woke — ^lo, 'twas a dream I 
 Not in Tatiti, in Pitcaim they dwelt ; 
 The sun of toil, not freedom's sun, did beam 
 Upon their opening eyes, and, ah ! they felt 
 How blest, and yet how cruel, was the sleep 
 That bade them smile, the more to bid them weep ! 
 They dashed the tears of memory from their eyes. 
 And pondered all day long on vengeance by surprise. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Two of the Mutineers, beyond the rest, 
 Were beings ignorant and desperate ; 
 Men in whose bosoms feeling was no guest : 
 Theirs was the pangless, if the ignoble, fate 
 That knows not fear, remorse, keen woe or joy ; 
 Such abject souls were Quintal and M'Koy — 
 Brigands, with foreheads low and features coarse. 
 Who owned no law but lust, no government but force. 
 
THE INSUKEECTION. 133 
 
 XT. 
 
 Their brutal anger, or their wild caprice, 
 Made their dark serfs oft tremhle for their lives ; 
 So that they held by an uncertain lease 
 Their sole possession, since they lost their wives : 
 Christian and Young protected them awhile, 
 But since brute force had half usurped the isle. 
 They let it like a drunken mob pass by. 
 And ceased to wield a weaponless authority. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Such was the state of Christian's rent domain, — 
 Such was Pitcairn, full of the elements 
 Whose conflict has o'erturned full many a reign, 
 Since patriarchal men first dwelt in tents 
 Till now, when monster monarchies do glide 
 Changeful adown time's rapid rolling tide, — 
 When the oppressed suddenly arose. 
 And reck'uing dread enforced for all their hoarded woes. 
 
134 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 It was a noon as treaclierously still 
 As ever hung o'er Araby tlie Blest, 
 Or far oasis -with its spring-fed rill, 
 Where, 'neath the laden date trees lulled to rest. 
 Some desert horde, fervid as their own sky. 
 Their cool siesta took luxuriously, 
 Nor thought, thus steeped in musings golden-green, 
 Of leafless worlds of sand from out their blest shades 
 seen : — 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 'Twas such a calm that noon in Pitcairn made. 
 Hushed were the winds, the wild woods whisperless ; 
 And still the bright sea lay, as if afraid 
 Too rudely round the dreamy isle to press ; 
 To undulations smooth the' surges fell, 
 Washing the mirrored cliffs with gentle swell. 
 And sparkling up the creek, by foliage spanned. 
 The wanton waters kissed by stealth the virgin sand. 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 135' 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Silent the grottoed shore ; Sound shimbered there, 
 And Echo stilled awhile her restless tongue ; 
 The sea-bird sailing slowly through the air 
 Its winged shadow on some tall cliff -flung — 
 The only shadow that full noontide gave. 
 cloudless isle ! sunny unmade grave ! 
 opiate sleep ! stillness, all too bright ! 
 O noon-day, all too near the tragic hour of night ! 
 
 XX. 
 
 Of the doomed Mutineers some, stretched at ease, 
 Lay lolling listless in the welcome shade 
 (For that still noon was warm) of the tall trees 
 That round their huts silvan enclosures made ; 
 And some, within the huts, far, far away 
 Through dream-lands travelled as they slumb'ring lay ; 
 Eevisiting, perchance, their boyhood homes. 
 Where lay by sea-coast villages their fathers' tombs — 
 
136 THE MUTINEEB&. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The old church -yards which they had left for aye, 
 No more to wander past, save in such dream ; 
 The resting place of many a fisher gray, 
 For whose return from sea, once on a time. 
 When children they, lost men as now they were, 
 Perchance were taught to lisp an evening prayer : 
 Well might they dream of village graves, who slept 
 That noon in Pitcairn's isle whereon no watch was kept. 
 
 Christian was not asleep, but like the rest 
 A fatal languor drugged him ; he had flung 
 His limbs beneath a tree, unnerved, opprest ; 
 The breath as of a coming simoom hung 
 Upon his fevered brow, and something sent 
 To his cold heart a dread presentiment ; — 
 For at gray dawn, that very morn, there stood 
 Beside him in his cave a spectre bathed in blood ! 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 137 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 And he had fled, for ever, as he swore, 
 That horror-haunted echo-cave — too true ! 
 He would indeed return to it no more — 
 From man there was he safe, but phantoms new 
 Of late at eve or early morn would hrood 
 Over the portals of his solitude : — 
 Such things as came of yore may come again, 
 To point their hour of fate to conscience-stricken men ! 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 In such an hour of false security, 
 The men of Otaheite twice in vain 
 Already had essayed the chance to try 
 That would destroy them or their freedom gain ; 
 And twice the women — once their own, their wives — 
 Present'ment like had hovered round the lives 
 Of their white masters, whom they loved too well, 
 As how they 'venged their fate, most terribly, may tell. 
 
138 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 But this time nothing stirred to mar the hour, 
 For guardian woman cherished languor too : 
 Within the hut of her pale paramour 
 She slumhered, or the shaded creek did woo, 
 Where, donning lazily her simple dress. 
 She listless laved her chiselled swarthiness. 
 Too self admiring, in the glassy tide, 
 Wotless that Murder gi-im was standing by her side. 
 
 XXVI. 
 At length the blow was struck : echo awoke, 
 As out of stillness rose a dreadful cry, 
 And on the isle bL^ody tornado broke — 
 A cry so long and full of agony ! 
 A piercing shriek, so sudden, loud and clear, 
 Neither the voice of frenzy, pain, nor fear, 
 But of them all commingling into cme. 
 Howled on the seaward air, and Christian's race was run ! 
 
THE TNSURKFCTTON. 139 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 It was his dying cry. The blacks first crept 
 Into the huts where, noiseless by surprise, 
 They massacred the whites therein who slept ; 
 Then like dark demons, ihadness in their eyes, 
 And some bedaubed with blood, did they surround 
 The trees 'neath which the others lay sun-bound, 
 All unsuspicious of their threatened fate ; 
 And some of them, too, did they quickly immolate. 
 
 XXYIII. 
 
 And Christian first they marked : as there appeared 
 A bloody form before him suddenly, 
 He deemed he saw again the thing he feared. 
 Signing to him it was his time to die : — 
 It was — 'twas he ! the phantom drenched in blood. 
 At early dawn within his cave that stood ! 
 The mists of death bedewed his saffron chSek, 
 And from his pallid lips there broke that dreadful shriek. 
 
140 ' THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Witli whicli lie died ere tlie Taheitan knife 
 Three times tliat ploughed into his palsied heart, 
 Quick though its stroke, could touch at all his life. 
 He did not feel assassination's smart ; 
 His mind alone received the stroke of pain ; 
 'Twas horror killed him, and a frenzied train. 
 So sunk a man who governed strife and storm, 
 Yet feared the clouds to which his conscience lent a form. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 So perished Christian ; one whose morning gave 
 Fair promise of a hright meridian noon. 
 Earth's bloodiest tyrant * found a sheltered grave, 
 Not all unhallowed by a love-festoon ; 
 But he, the Mutineer, in blood was drowned, 
 Spurned by the sea, rejected by the ground ; — 
 O'er him no faithful mound, perennial green, 
 At dewy eve was strown with flowers by hands unseen. 
 
 * Nero. — " Some bands unseen strow'd flowers upon his tomb." 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 141 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 If in Pitcaim Hs mangled corse did rot, — 
 If there his mouldering bones indeed were left, 
 No mark was made to'consecrate the spot ; 
 And Christian dead, as living, was bereft 
 Of quiet harbour, and denied a tomb. 
 'Tis said by some Ahasuerus' doom 
 Was also his ; that this arch Mutineer, 
 Though dead, still roamed the world for many a year ! 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Oft, say they, it was seen with pale pale face,^ 
 Shadowless form and noiseless gliding tread, 
 Amid the scenes of Christian's early days — 
 The spectre-image of the rover dead ! 
 When sunsets tinged and evening breezes fanned, 
 Or moonbeams bathed in lakes of Westmoreland, 
 There walked the Mutineer, from far returned, 
 But, oh ! not in the flesh some Pitcaim cave inurned. 
 
142 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Such are the shades that flit round Christian's fate ; 
 He who was great, yet terribly obscure ; 
 Who sold his birthright to appease his hate, 
 And for the vengeful joy of one strong hour 
 Gave happiness away, and scornful went 
 To self-inflicted, hopeless banishment : 
 Like some rash knight, by venomed passion stung 
 To take monastic vows whilst life and love were young. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 He was a man of that firm stamp of mind 
 That serves no master save its own strong will ; 
 Bom or to scourge or fascinate mankind ; 
 Big with the qualities of good or ill. 
 A criminal he was, but not a slave ; 
 No ready tool, no common scheming knave. 
 Ah, who can tell what splendid qualities 
 Perfume the rags wherein full many a rover dies 1 
 
THE INSUEKECTION. 143 
 
 t 
 
 XXXT. 
 
 The dying sun a lurid radiance gave, 
 Ere sinking in the sea, the ensanguined shore, 
 Where o'er his mangled master stood the slave, 
 With horrid freedom drunk. Yet still lived four 
 Of the oppressors ; Quintal and M'Koy, 
 Whom first the insurgents purposed to destroy. 
 Were two of these : conscious of mortal hate. 
 And lynx-eyed grown, in time they fled their threatened 
 fate. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 They gat them to the woods, whose secret caves 
 And inaccessibilities they knew ; 
 There hid they, trembling, from their former slaves. 
 Who, as they deemed, would hotly soon pursue, 
 And search the island hound-like round and round. 
 Till they, their mortal enemies, were found ; 
 Then would they, too, be numbered with the dead. 
 But first, distracted Love rose from her crimsoned bed — 
 
144 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 And o'er the mangled bodies of tte dead, 
 The lordly masters of her heart, she vowed 
 An Amazonian vengeance, fiercely shed. — 
 Meanwhile, all unsuspecting, in the crowd 
 Of slain and slayers Young had met his end, 
 But over him an Eve-like form did bend — 
 A form that near him oft would softly creep. 
 To gaze on him unseen, and guard him in his sleep — 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Like gipsy love-dream of the sultry south — 
 A wild Taheitan girl, with raven hair, 
 Bright swimming eyes, bronze cheek and coral mouth. 
 And tiny hands, and bosom more than fair, 
 And limbs free cast in nature's choicest mould. 
 And movements of a symmetry untold. 
 And grace, because untaught, that lovelier seemed — 
 Such beauty scarce through Afric's dye less brightly 
 beamed. 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 145 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 She loved pale, blue-eyed, melancholy Young ; 
 She saw in him the heing of her dreams, 
 A hero-god in island legends sung ; 
 She sighed, she wept, she worshipped, as beseems 
 An artless, languishing, romantic maid, 
 A woman with a heart : where'er be laid 
 The story of her fate, it is the same, 
 Same tale of love, whate'er her state, her clime, her 
 name. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Often around his path did Noolah glide, 
 Like his twin shadow, hiding in his way ; 
 Nor that red noon far was she from his side, 
 When a Taheitan, marking where he lay. 
 With hatchet-knife upraised to drink his blood. 
 Above the prostrate boy demoniac stood, — 
 His blow was turned aside by her soft arm, 
 And Noolah's breast the shield that guarded Young 
 from harm. 
 
146 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 She stood with swelling form and flashing eye, 
 Daring the death that looked him in the face 
 For love of whom all deaths she now could die, 
 And from her look Murder retired apace ; 
 The martyr's courage and the hero's pride, 
 The tigress and the ring-dove, side by side, — 
 Daring, love, sacrifice around her shone, 
 And he was saved — her pale, her beautiful, her own ! 
 
 XLII. 
 
 She summoned others, and they came, they flew — 
 Alas, too late 1 their lords lay drenched in gore ! 
 Yet round the one unhurt a ring they drew 
 No murderer could break, and thus they bore 
 Distracted Young quick out of danger's reach. 
 They hid him in a fastness by the beach. 
 Some natural cave, like Christian's haunted keep. 
 Hard to approach and hung high o'er the guarding 
 deep. 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 147 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 There let him muse, his dreams Elysian 
 Broken at length, and his romance-life past ; 
 There let him muse, as boundless he doth scan 
 The sea before him spread — until at last 
 The evening shades come frowning round his den — 
 Deeming himself the last of Europe's men 
 In that young world, so full now of the dead, 
 And where, when midnight sighs, more blood will yet 
 be shed. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Another white man 'scaped untimely end. 
 Finding protection where he sought it least ; 
 Amongst the insurgents one remained his friend ; 
 One savage calmed the fury of the beast, 
 On'e tiger mad with blood forsook its prey. 
 One generous act relieved that treacherous day, — 
 Adams, the Mutineer, was spared to be 
 The patriarch of Pitcairn, the old man of the sea. 
 
 K 2 
 
148 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 He was a petty oflScer, who went 
 Both heart and hand with Christian in his crime ; 
 Yet was he tender and benevolent, 
 And for the opprest Taheitahs many a time 
 Had pled with the more lawless of the men ; 
 And one he had defended firmly when 
 The ruffian Quintal drew on him his knife ; 
 And now the grateful serf protected life for life. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 Yet was he sorely wounded, barely saved : 
 For when the trodden down do once rise up. 
 Oppression having made them twice depraved, 
 They drain revenge and empty fury's cup. 
 Who knows, save he has felt the fierce delight, 
 How sweet, long smitten, 'tis at length to smite ! — 
 But hungry lions in a wilderness 
 Have spared their prey, and man in Pitcairn did no less. 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 
 
 149 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Woman it was that tad no merey there 
 For those who rudely broke her dream of life ; 
 Woman it was that knew not how to spare, 
 And dipped in subtlest treachery her knife- 
 How deep the gulf, and yet how lightly leapt, . 
 Betwixt two vows alike by woman kept — 
 Love and Eevenge, the mind's antipodes ! 
 'Twas thus that in Pitcairn she kept the last of these : 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 Night came again from out the wat'ry vast, 
 Casting dark shades around the ravished glade, 
 Whence ruddy gleams of light were fitful cast 
 From fires by which the insurgents feasting made ; 
 Till, gorged with unaccustomed food and drunk 
 With bloody joy, they one by one had sunk 
 Into the fatal arms — no more would ope — 
 Of slumbers that were not unfanned by savage hope. 
 
150 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 To-morrow fi-eedom would await their call, 
 And vengeance, half appeased, would feast again ; 
 Then the four tyrants left would surely fall ; 
 Betwixt the serfs and the ingulfing main 
 Small hope of ultimate escape was theirs : 
 And so themselves deemed, tremhling in their lairs, 
 Like the condemned passing the night in prayer, 
 Dreading, yet watching for, the morning light so fair. 
 
 L. 
 
 But ere pale gleams ob the horizon broke, 
 A deed of still more dreadful note was done ; 
 Of the Taheitans never one awoke 
 Who slept that night, to see new day begun — 
 (How red the sun rose on the isle next day !) 
 With feasting full as the insurgents lay, 
 Light feet and graceful forms beside them crept. 
 And searching, soft hands felt their hearts beat as they 
 slept : 
 
THE INSURRECTION. 151 
 
 LI. 
 
 But not in love ; death-cold was the embrace 
 That each dark snake-like Amazon bestowed ! 
 All in the hush of night in that lone place 
 (The glist'ning stars the deed to heaven showed) 
 They massacred their sleeping countrymen ; 
 Who started,,gave a groan or two, and then 
 Lay still for ever ; and dark Azrael stood, 
 Till the sun rose again, upon that isle of blood ! 
 
 LII. 
 
 At length the Dawn stole out of nature's hush ; 
 First in dim streaks that scared still reigning Night, 
 And hafbingered the meek subdued blush 
 That gradual deepened as the virgin light 
 In bashful glories flashed from Morning's eye ; 
 TiU Day usurped the spacious canopy. 
 And from the. deep emerged the flaming Sun, 
 To publish the dark deed the vanquished Night had 
 done I 
 
152 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Then from Ms Mding place in tlie wild creek, 
 Pale Young with dread forhoding slowly crept, 
 And saw a being of the sex called weak 
 Watching for him ; she clasped his knees and wept — 
 But not with anguish — Noolah wept for joy- 
 That he was saved again, her bright-haired boy ! 
 Nor shuddered she to tell she led the van 
 Last night, when those who slept were slaughtered to a 
 man. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Then, too, did Adams, stiff with green wounds still, 
 Creep from remoter lair in thicket dense. 
 To cool his fever at the nearest rill, 
 List'ning like stricken deer in keen suspense, 
 Scarce daring, trembling, all his thirst to slake. 
 Lest day should light the blood-hounds on his track ; 
 And yet, whilst deeming that new day his last. 
 Clinging to shipwrecked hope as to a broken mast. 
 
THE INSUREECTION. 153 
 
 LV. 
 
 And lie, too, leaxnt, as morning did increase 
 And marched the sun the silent island o'er, 
 That he might sit by Pitcairn's streams in peace, 
 Since the Taheitan men were now no more : 
 Yet, as relieved he drank the morning hreeze, 
 He sorrowfully thought of one of these. 
 And cursed frail Noolah's hand that sped the knife, 
 Unknowingly, to spill his dark preserver's life. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 And ere long also, Quintal and M'Koy 
 Like famished wolves came from the woods again, 
 And meeting Adams heard with savage joy 
 How the Taheitan rebels had been slain 
 All by the women in the dead of night ; 
 Whereat the ruffians capered with delight. 
 Unconscious that to them, too, would be sent, 
 Ere long, a doom as sudden and as violent. 
 
154 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 And now but four pale men remain — but four, 
 Of all who landed on that island grave ! 
 The rest lie dead on the ensanguined shore, 
 That shall be cleansed by the foam-capped wave 
 Ah, never more 1 No more shall Silence stand 
 Sublime, her pale brow star-lit, hand and hand 
 With Innocence and Beauty, there alone ! 
 Pitcairn has tasted blood, and heard the murdered groan. 
 
TI. 
 
 THE EAST MAN. 
 
~ vr. 
 
 THE LAST MAN. 
 
 what a mocker strange is " dusty Death !" 
 The monarch's and the peasant's kindred state ; 
 The prize for which Ambition spends its breath ; 
 Alike of Honour and of Shame the fate ; — 
 Cold bridal bed of Beauty and of Love, 
 Grim phantom of the city and the grove, 
 Smiter unseen, that knows no pause, no ruth, — 
 Terror of man's old age, and widower of his 3'outh ! 
 
158 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 What boots it that once wore yon loathsome corse 
 A conquering helmet on its royal brow, 
 And trod on millions with the heel of force ? 
 Its limbs refiise obedience to it now ! 
 What is it to yon other moulderirtg frame, 
 That late 'twas girt with intellectual fame ? 
 What Genius yielded all too late it won, 
 And night approached ere it had well beheld the sun ! 
 
 Lo I yonder, stretched upon a flower- strown bier, 
 Lies what was lately an all potent thing — 
 The hero's toast, the poet's worship here — 
 Soft, lovely woman in her virgin spring : 
 Her brightness now is past, and ceased the play 
 Of features sunny once as summer day ; 
 Though on her lips a wan smile seems to rest. 
 As loath to leave its world, like dying day i' the west. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 159 
 
 Lo ! yonder, on the cold and flinty ground, 
 The aged serf has laid him down to die ; 
 At length, long wished for, refuge he has found 
 From man's oppression, life's long misery : 
 He — he perchance, counts dissolution gain ? 
 Ah, no ! he wildly clasps his parting chain — 
 " God I is this the sum of all," he cries, 
 " Fate formed me to endure !" — and as he lived, he dies. 
 
 And yonder, see, a kind of death in life — 
 A Crusoe, half entombed yet strong and free ; 
 Does he rejoice he left a world of strife 
 To dwell almost alone with sky and sea ? 
 Say, does his look so solemn, or his eye 
 So curiously fixed on vacancy, 
 Eeflect a soul that joys to dwell alone. 
 And listen to no voice except the ocean's moan ? 
 
160 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 Ah, no ! for solitude, like death, is sad. 
 Tall Azrael's shadow darkens half the earth ; 
 Hence numbers weep who, else, alone were glad ; 
 For hopes and loves entwine us from our birth, 
 And whether those we miss or we depart, 
 Torn strings still lie about the beating heart : 
 Fly where he may, remembrances intrude, 
 And haunt that man the most who most seeks solitude. 
 
 I. 
 
 The stillness that so commonly succeeds 
 The storm of human passions, and the shock 
 Of wild convulsions or redeemless deeds, 
 Eested awhile upon that lovely rock ; 
 And in Pitcairn in plenty dwelt, and peace, 
 The four last Mutineers; and by degrees, 
 The lively horrors of the fearful day 
 And night that crimsoned the green isle faded away. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 161 
 
 II. 
 
 Adams became to Young what few had been — 
 Tbe patient friend of the romantic boy. 
 But little sympathy was there between 
 Their officers and Quintal and M'Koy : 
 These ruffians apart together dwelt, 
 As if their moral difference they felt 
 Instinctively ; and for a breathing time 
 They led dull lives, unstained at least by open crime. 
 
 III. 
 Lolled in the pleasant woods the live-long day. 
 Bearded like Turks, with their Sultanas swarth 
 They aimless dozed the sultry hours away ; 
 And when the cool of evening brought them forth, 
 'Twas not to pace the isle's romantic coast 
 In rainbow-tinted fancies grandly lost, 
 Such as o'er gifted mortals, formed to feel . 
 The throbs of nature, wont at day's decline to steal. 
 
1162 
 
 THE MUTINEEKS. 
 
 lY. 
 
 Not SO they saw tlie iDroacl-orbed sun descend, 
 And, gradual sinking in the burnished main 
 'Midst golden courtier clouds, day's pageant end, 
 Like some old monarch smiling out his reign ; — 
 Not so they saw the moon, in modest pride. 
 Awhile behind tire-maiden Twilight hide, 
 Till scared no more by glance of parting day. 
 The silver-belted queen walks on her starry way. 
 
 Creation's grandeur had for them no power ; 
 They gazed around them with a vacant stare. 
 And oft their grim and shaggy looks would lower 
 On sunny scenes that were surpassing fair; 
 As, day by day, unvaried idleness 
 A heavier weight upon them seemed to press ; 
 For DOW, more awful than it came before, 
 Eeturned the thought that they might never leave that 
 shore. 
 
THE LAST HAN. 163 
 
 VI. 
 
 In Erin green M'Koy was once a child ; 
 
 And still at times Ms sluggish thoughts would stray 
 
 To the lone hut in Connemara wild, 
 
 Where spent he many a ragged careless' day, 
 
 'Mid bogs and heaths through which no roads were 
 
 made, 
 Where secret distillation plied its trade. 
 And many a caldron full of fierce potheen 
 Was made in spite of law that seldom there was seen. 
 
 VII. 
 
 While thus the Mutineer would backward roam 
 Through early scenes, he felt no tender thrill. 
 No recollection of a happy home ; 
 Wild hungry faces round the whisky-still, 
 Or misty wanderings o'er bog and moor, 
 Was all he treasured of his youth obscure : 
 But musing thus, it crossed his mind that he 
 Had somewhere seen, or heard about, the Toddy-tree. 
 
 l2 
 
164 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And why not also ia Pitcairn, perchance, 
 Might that production glorious be found ? 
 The happy thought had scarcely shot askance 
 
 M'Koy's murk brain, ere like a thirsty hound 
 He sped the lone woods through with anxious look, 
 And careful survey of the isle he took. 
 Tapping most kinds of trees it did produce, 
 And testing hopefully the virtues of their juice. 
 
 IX. 
 
 At length he found the kind of tree he sought ' 
 (A tree it was to him without a name), 
 Whose sug'ry sap, by fermentation wrought, 
 A strong intoxicating drink became. 
 how the ruffians howled for joy and lept 
 Like madmen ! as the old sensation crept 
 Through their dull vitals, till in every vein 
 The fury of intoxication flowed again. 
 
THF, LAST MAN. 165 
 
 X. 
 
 Alas ! now they were foul of it once more, 
 That rock on which too many sailors split, 
 And landsmen too : drink many a time before 
 The fires of brief insanity had lit 
 In these two men, who once more drank their fill. 
 A kettle was their oft-replenished still, 
 And sappy groves, like drainless fountains, showered 
 The treacherous juice by love of which they were 
 devoured. / 
 
 XI. 
 
 what strange subtle and seductive sprites 
 Dwell in the sap of certain grains and trees, 
 To sting us with unnatural appetites, 
 And fan the fires they offer to appease ! 
 What gain and ills unspeakable have come 
 To man through Alcohol and Opium ! 
 In pain and sickness comforters divine — 
 Accursed daily bread, but heavenly medicine ! 
 
1*)6 
 
 THE MUTINEEKS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But as it were life's staff, their daily bread, 
 They wholly lived on the fermented draught, 
 Of which at will a fresh supply they made : 
 All day and night awhile they sang and laughed- 
 Such jollity was all too loud to last — 
 Some weeks in roaring drunkenness flew past ; 
 Then might you see in Quintal's glassy eye 
 The cunning light of threatening insanity. 
 
 Soon came the sudden and impulsive blow, 
 The frantic yell, the fight as desperate 
 As ever savage wilderness did know ; 
 Tliese ruffians, companions boon so late. 
 Now clasped each other with no loving hold ; 
 Like tigers grappling, o'er and o'er they rolled ; 
 And yet no quarrel led to that grim strife — 
 Quintal was raging mad, M'Koy fought for his life. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 167 
 
 XIV. 
 
 He tore himself from Quintal's grasp and fled 
 From the roused madman and the mortal strife, 
 By devious paths to perilous cliffs that led, 
 Where he to save, was fain to risk his life. 
 Once more alone, Quintal drank deep again, 
 Till feai-ful images impressed his brain : 
 Awhile he paced its brink -with maniac cries. 
 Then sprang from off a lofty tide-washed precipice ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Next day his corse was found upon the beach. 
 Already furnishing the sea-birds' meal ; 
 Around it hovering with plaintive screech 
 From morn till eve the hungry fowls did wheel, 
 Marking the spot, unhallowed by a mound. 
 Where one more Mutineer dread doom had found. 
 M'Koy at first rejoiced, but soon began 
 Sorely to miss his former fellow rufSaa. 
 
168 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 He turned him then to Adams and to Young — 
 For with the ■women living all alone 
 His mental bow, long hent, became unstrung, 
 And now and then, when night winds sad did moan, 
 He deemed he heard dead Quintal's maniac laugh ; — 
 Appalled, he ceased the fiery mead to quaff. 
 And came, with words submissive on his lip, 
 And asked to share his officers' companionship. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But Young and Adams dark doubts entertained 
 As to the mystery of Quintal's death ; 
 That with his brother's blood M'Koy was stained, 
 They hinted to each other under breath 
 (And though he slew him not in strife, he was 
 The accomplice of his end, if not its cause) ; 
 And deeming him the fiend he soon became. 
 They bade him hence and did his brotherhood disclaim. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 169 
 
 « 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 So he returned, a desperate man, unto 
 The woods that to him now more ghostly seemed, 
 And set himself the madd'ning mead to brew. ' 
 He drank until his brain with frenzies teemed ; 
 And vengeance, vengeance ever was the theme 
 That day and night he made his darling dream — 
 Vengeance for all his wrongs, and most the last, 
 Whereby Adams and Young had left him lone, outcast. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Thus rage and madness filling all his soul. 
 He straight resolved his enemies to smite,^ 
 And to the hut of Toung and Adams stole, 
 With treachery shrouded in the misty night, 
 And dashing in the door with hatchet stroke, 
 Surprised them both before they well awoke ; 
 And Young he wounded sorely, ere a blow 
 From stalwart Adams laid the wretch for ever low. 
 
.170 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Thus was M'Koy slain like a rabid hound ; 
 So died another mutinous brigand ; 
 Not till upon him closed the solid ground, 
 Adams and Young secure dwelt in the land. 
 Wretch though he was, yet now that he was dead, 
 They oft regretted how he perished : 
 As o'er his corse the green sod they did press, 
 They doubly felt the weight of their twin loneliness. 
 
 Thenceforth the strong man, Adams, felt unto 
 That wounded youth, now paler, sadder Young, 
 Such love as if he were a father who 
 With double fondness to his sick child clung ; 
 And as with Noolah's aid he gently bound, 
 With balsam herbs she brought, his aching wound- 
 " Beloved boy ! had'st thou been slain," he cried, 
 " For very grief I, too, had kid me down and died." 
 
THE LAST MAN. 171 
 
 XXII. 
 
 To which pale Young, with joy-lorn smile did saj^ — 
 " my preserver, and my father- friend, 
 Or soon or late will come the lonely day 
 When you and Noolah will my bier attend ; 
 Perchance not long may I with you remain ; 
 A white shape waves me oft across the main ; 
 This wound, so tenderly your hands have drest. 
 Is nothing to the hidden wound that long has wrung 
 my breast." 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 To which the tender giant would reply — 
 " speak no longer thus, thou gentle heart ! 
 (And saying so a tear would dim his eye) 
 When health returns thy sadness will depart ; 
 Full many a year thou haply yet shalt see 
 In this fair isle, with Noolah and with me ; 
 Here violence buried shall return no more, 
 And thou shalt find Pitcairn delightful as before." 
 
172 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Then would he turn away with heaving breast, 
 To hide perchance, ashamed, the hig tear-drop, 
 To eagle eye like his vmwonted guest ; 
 Yet as he grasped his carabine would stop, 
 And looking back upon the drooping boy, 
 Anon would execrate.the wretch M'Koy, 
 Nor blame his own right arm that laid him low ; 
 Then towards the sea-birds' haunts a hunting would he 
 go. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Nor long would he be gone ere Noolah soft 
 From out the circling foliage would appear 
 (Far from Toung was she never long or oft). 
 Like bleating fawn approaching stricken deer ; 
 Glide to his feet, there sit with speakirig look. 
 Gaze in his eyes as in a summer brook. 
 And fearful half lest she was over bold. 
 Shade gently from his brow his curls of auburn-gold. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 173 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Then would lie smile on her as on a child, 
 And she some sad Taheitan air would sing, 
 Whereon he sailM back to Scotia wild : — 
 The pibroch through the lone glen seemed to ring, 
 The red deer crossed the sky-line on the hill. 
 His highland home came back, and yonder still 
 Was she, his love, in all her matchless charms. 
 And, ah, too happy now within another's arms ! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The charm of life, the love of life was past ; 
 He scarce encouraged now the ;wish to live — 
 That strong desire that haunts us to the last, 
 And grants the dying oft a brief reprieve, — 
 The air Hope sings to many broken lyres, 
 Smoothing the pillows whereon Faith expires ; 
 E'en hope, best medicine, away was flung. 
 And for his last long sleep prepared sad weary Young.' 
 
174 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 A moon had waxed and now was on the wane, 
 And still his fretting wound refused to heal ; 
 Fearing he might not see her rise again, 
 He from his restless couch at times would steal. 
 When Adams slept, to gaze on night's pale orb. 
 The firmament's vast silent awe absorb. 
 And to the sinking crescent mournful tell 
 How he, too, waning fast, must bid the stars farewell'! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 At length the dreadful truth, resisted long 
 By Adams, stood confest — and must he die ! 
 How terribly that man, resolved and strong. 
 Was rent by anguish as the hour drew nigh 
 That was to leave him in Pitcairn alone ! 
 Oh ! never did distracted sire bemoan 
 Approaching death of darling only child, 
 Nor bridegroom wail his bride, in tones than his more 
 wild! 
 
THE LAST MAN. 175 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Yet when beside him was he wondrous calm, 
 And tried to smile to smother his fierce grief, 
 As he would take within his brawny palm 
 Young's pale thin hand, and utter the belief— 
 " That he was better now, was getting well, 
 "And some day soon — ^full soon, ay, who could tell ? — 
 Might help him gather in their half- wild flocks. 
 Or hunt at ebb of tide the turtle on the rocks." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Then would Young shake his head and sadly smile ; 
 And Adams suddenly would recollect 
 That something called him thence a little while, 
 Though back they might him very soon expect ; 
 Then would he leave a scene that wrung his heart. 
 By the lone shore to act another part. 
 But not alone the dying youth would bide ; 
 Noolah, sad Noolah now, was ever by his side. 
 
176 
 
 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 xxxn. 
 'Tis something to be loved ; to feel that one 
 Warm heart devoted among womankind 
 Has currents that towards thee incessant run ; 
 That one unfathomable human mind 
 Is full of thee to brimming ; that where'er 
 Thou wanderest its happiness is there ; — 
 E'en though the trusting tendril that doth twine 
 Itself around thy fate be no first love of thine. 
 
 xxxni. 
 'Tis something, too, if sickness hath thee bound 
 With solitude upon some foreign strand, 
 Should she who loves thee minister around 
 Thy couch, tending on thee with gentle hand ; 
 How selfish then thy -woes, how mean thy cares, 
 Compared with hers who for thee bondage wears ! 
 And so perchance thought Young, as Noolah mild- 
 A tigress once for him — now nursed him as a child. 
 
.THE LAST MAN. 177 
 
 XXX-IV. 
 
 Yet Woman, why art coupled aye with love ? — 
 As if mere passioD were thy sours one string, 
 As if thou hadst not faculties above 
 The common depths where the affections spring — 
 Why dp we call thee Angel, if thou art 
 A being not of mind but all of heart ? 
 say, can nought but selfish love incline 
 Thy heart to suffering man, thou wondrous heroine ?\ 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Yes — ^^They salute who are about to die ;* 
 It is the pomp precise of glorious war. 
 Hark ! opens now " the red artillery," 
 And battle's deadly din resounds afar — 
 And now it rolls away ; the foe has fled ; 
 Let Glory count on either side her dead : 
 'Mongst these hadst thou. a brother or a friend? 
 Console thyself; he quickly died — and there an end. 
 
178 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But now it is the crowded hospitaj, 
 Where wounded agony, in every shape, 
 Vainly for comfort and relief doth call. 
 Worse far than Cossack lance or Eussian grape, 
 Neglect official tears the soldier's breast ;— 
 Oh, for a dove's wings then to bear him West I 
 They come, and by the bed of suffering pale 
 Are heard the healing notes of England's Nightingale ! 
 
 xxxvn. 
 Deeper than ever thrilled Italian voice, 
 Or Swedish, through excited fashion's throng. 
 Her unbought native accents do rejoice 
 The dying soldier's heart ; pope's vestal song 
 Breathes as a zephyr in his failing ear ; 
 He sees beside him now his sister dear. 
 And suffering's sigh replaces horror's groan : — 
 Enough, he will not die neglected and alone ! 
 
THE LAST MAN. 179 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Gk), gaudy hero I wear upon thy front 
 The decorations proudly thou hast won ; 
 Be fSted, be admired ; 'tis fashion's wont 
 To deem that glory else than thine is none. 
 Beauty applauds, but Genius, passing by, 
 Pays thee the juster tribute of a sigh, 
 And more than thine would deeds like those extol : 
 The truest glory is nobility of soul. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Noel ah — her love for Young was passionate ; 
 A kind of superstition of the heart. 
 That stamped her with his being and his fate. 
 From him she never, never thought to part ; 
 She worshipped even the ground on which he trod, 
 And deemed him, as it were, a mortal god, — 
 A being that her heated fancy, wrought 
 By island legends d,ini, in vain till now had sought. 
 
 m2 
 
180 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XL. 
 
 He was lier waking dream, the thought-romance 
 She traced upon the soft scenes she beheld ; 
 For life had been to her a kind of trance, 
 Wherein existing things seemed least revealed. 
 She was a natural enthusiast ; 
 A woman who, where'er her lot be cast, 
 ■Creates the thing she loves, and ne'er forsakes 
 The being of whose nature thenceforth she partakes. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 They were not all unlike, that dreamy pair, 
 Though 'twixt them frowned the barrier of race : 
 Noolah was swarthy, Young was Saxon-fair, 
 But in the mind of each there was a trace 
 Of something kindred, difficult to name ; — 
 'Twas similar in both, but not the same 
 Wild love of freedom, and an inward eye 
 That looked on all things through the haze of poetry. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 181 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Young liked her, though he loved her not ; he knew 
 Her hands were stained with blood ; yet was it not 
 For him her savage countrymen she slew ? 
 She was his sister kind in that lone spot, 
 And much indeed it wrung his failing heart 
 From wild devotion such as hers to part : 
 He felt almost had come his time to go. 
 That death was at the door, hut dared not tell her so. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Sore was he racked with pain, weary and weak. 
 And he desired to go and be at rest : — 
 As seaward lengthened shade of each tall peak, 
 And the spent sun his ocean pillow prest. 
 He died one tranquil eve without a groan, 
 And, as he wished, departed when alone. 
 Noolah had gone some tempting meal to dress. 
 And Adams to the woods ; nor did they guess. 
 As they returned, that they would fear to face 
 The thing that, since they left the hut, sat in Young's 
 place ! 
 
182 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 At first his prey to Death they scarce would give ; 
 So little changed the aspect, and so like 
 The hody was to him who late did live. 
 As through the hut the sun's last rays did strike, 
 Streaming across dead Young's sad smiling face. 
 The very look with which he used to gaze 
 Upon the setting sun revealing there, — 
 He seemed not dead, hut listening to some heavenly air. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Perchance 'twas so : some Spirit touched its lyre, 
 And to his ear, dishodied hardly yet. 
 Was wafted echo of angelic choir ; 
 Or through the radiance wherein the sun set. 
 Futurity its scenes did half unfold. 
 Where Seraphs, leaning on their harps of gold. 
 Beckoned him to a far more lovely isle 
 Than even Pitcairn, which he left with that dead smile. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 183 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 Then came a night of loneliness and dread, 
 Such as for Adams never lowered before. 
 Till now he never to himself had said — ■ 
 T am alone, and shall he, evermore ! 
 He stretched himself upon the flinty ground 
 Beside the hut, and made the night resound 
 With sohs and groans he strove not to suppress ; 
 As if his own griefs voice relieved his loneliness. 
 
 xLVir. 
 But Noolah's grief was very different. 
 Her agony was silent ; she spake not. 
 But sat with glassy eyes intently bent 
 Through darkness, double now, upon one spot. 
 Till morning shed again a ghastly ray 
 Upon the corse's face ; and all next day, 
 And night too, there she Niobe-like was found 
 Beside it,' till 'twas time to put it in the ground. 
 
184 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Slie followed Adams to the lonely dell 
 Where he had made for Young a promised grave : 
 It was a spot the pensive youth loved well 
 To sit within, and watch the distant wave 
 That glancing through the circling trees was seen, 
 As 'twere a sylvan lake ; and it had been 
 His living wish, to Adams once exprest, 
 There, where he used to muse, to take his last long rest. 
 
 XlilX. 
 
 Then — then he left the spot with heavy heart, 
 And to the lonely, lonely hut returned. 
 But Noolah from that dell would not depart ; 
 There all she treasured — all was now inurned. 
 Upon the little mound 'neath which Young slept, 
 Like a bronze statue noiseless watch she kept : 
 So, oft, his faithful dog till death has lain 
 Upon the "shepherd's grave, or by the soldier slain. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 185 
 
 L. 
 
 Adams "gave sorrow words ;" not his the grief 
 That does not speak, and therefore does not heal ; 
 Time, the redeemer, came to his relief 
 And blunted in the end affliction's steel ; 
 But long he roamed the isle, like restless ghost 
 Searching for something buried now and lost ; 
 And, till a year had passed, he scarce could deem 
 That his companion's death was other than a dream. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Thus on some tide- washed, echoing, tall cliff laid. 
 Oft would he sadly ponder all day long. 
 Till round him he a living past arrayed ; 
 And far into the shadowy night prolong 
 His pensive musings, till the stars grew dim. 
 And morn again surprised the isle and him ; 
 Then to his hut absorbed he would repair, 
 Hoping, even against hope, to find his Young still 
 there ! 
 
186 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Tlien as the tempest of his mind grew calm, 
 And Young's death loomed a past reality, 
 He used, each morn, to climb the towering palm 
 On highest hill that most approached the sky, 
 And from the topmost bower of that vast tree 
 To gaze all day on the encircling sea — 
 All the horizon round he thence could scan — 
 As 'twere the utmost link that bound him now to man. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Lo ! years have fled, and still he constant goes 
 At dawn to yonder lofty palm-clad hill, 
 And climbs the tree, and marks how the wind blows. 
 And on the ocean gazes, gazes still. 
 His eye still bright, but gray is now his hair. 
 And on his aspect stamped a weird-like air : 
 So looks the chamois himter, long exiled 
 From haunts of men, or Indian of the prairie wild. 
 
THE LAST MAN. 187 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Wliy scans the old man still the weary main ? 
 Is it a passing ship he hopes to spy 
 On yonder unfrequented wastes again ? 
 Why thus incessant is his dreamy eye 
 On the horizon fixed from morn till eve ? 
 Say, would he now that awe-girt island leave ? 
 No ; it is dear unto him as the home 
 Of his forefathers, and will be his chosen tomb. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Yet still he gazes. Ere he die, perchance, 
 Some sunny morn when sea and sky are blue, 
 A glimmering sail, amid the wide expanse, 
 May break the sameness of his aching view : 
 Some wandered bark, pursuing the sperm-whale, 
 May sight that unknown isle, nor past it sail ; 
 New ocean-rovers may embrace its strand, 
 And brethren take once more the old man by the hand. 
 
188 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 That ship, long looked for, yet may come. Meanwhile, 
 The curtains of the deep begin to close ; 
 The rolling mists ohscure the lonely isle ; 
 The sound of ocean's moan more distant grows ,- 
 The winged wind that taught my harp its song — 
 Fitful, and e'en already all too long — 
 Goes, sweeter notes, perchance, than mine to swell. 
 Faintly resounding sea, and dreamy Isle — farewell ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
NOTES.* 
 
 I. 
 
 (') Stanza xviii. 
 His sailors were his slaves, his ship a "hell-afloat!" 
 
 According to a writer in tke United Service Journal for April 
 1831, it was the excessive tyranny of Bligh which alone caused 
 the mutiny. " Hell-afloat " is still a common expression among 
 sailors, applied to a ship in which the duty is enforced with 
 vexatious severity. 
 
 (^) Stanza xx. 
 
 Tahiti's isle 
 Dredged at their anchmed hearts — 
 
 According to Bligh himself, the seductions of Otaheite were 
 
 * Where some other authority i» not cited, the gaotations in the Kotes are 
 from Sir John Bartow's History of the Mvimy of The Bowity. 
 
192 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 the main cause of tlie mutiny. He says — " I can only conjec- 
 ture, that the mutineers had flattered themselves with the hopes 
 of a more happy life among the Otaheitans than they could pos- 
 sibly enjoy in England; and this, joined to some female connec- 
 tions, probably occasioned the whole transaction." 
 
 (') StAUZA XXVI. 
 
 prematurely old 
 In vice, disease, deceit and cant, and thirst for gold! 
 
 " Such was the happy state of this beautiful island [Otaheite] 
 and its interesting natives, at the time Captain "Wallis first dis- 
 covered and Lieutenant Cook shortly afterwards visited it. What 
 they now are, as described by Captain Beechy, it is lamentable 
 to reflect. The innocent amusements of the natives have been 
 denounced by the missionaries, and, in lieu of them, these poor 
 people have been di-iven to seek for resources in habits of indo-' 
 lence and apathy. That simplicity of character which atoned ' 
 for many of their faults has been converted into cunning and 
 hypocrisy ; and drunkenness, poverty, and disease, have thinned' 
 the island of its former inhabitants to a frightful extent." 
 
 (') Stanza xxxii. 
 Hie evening watcli was set. 
 
 " It was one of those calm and beautiful nights so frequent-' 
 in tropical regions, whose soothing influence can be appreciated 
 
NOTES. 193 
 
 only by those who have felt it — when, after a scorching day, 
 the air breathes a most refreshing coolness ; — it was an evening 
 of this sort, when Bligh for the last time came on deck in the 
 capacity of commander ; a gentle breeze scarcely rippled the 
 water, and the moon, then in its first quarter, shed its soft light 
 along the surface of the sea." 
 
 p) Stai^za hi. 
 Gods ! he will Venturis on a raft or spar. 
 
 It would seem that Christian^ " finding himself much hurt 
 by the treatment he had received from Captain BUgh, had (at 
 first) determined to quit the ship, and that he had fastened 
 some staves to a stout plank with which he intended to make 
 his escape (to the island of Taffoa, then in sight) ; but finding 
 that he could not effect it during the flist and middle watches; 
 he laid down to rest (till the morning watch, when it was his 
 turn to take charge of the deck) ; when seeing Mr Hayward, the 
 mate of his watch, lie down on the arm-chest to take a nap, and 
 finding that Mr Hallet, the other midshipman, did not make 
 his appearance, he suddenly formed the idea of seizing the 
 ship." 
 
194 THE MUTINEEES. 
 
 (') Stanza xxii. 
 Sis opening ei/es ferocious glances met, — 
 
 " Just before sunrise, on Tuesday the 28th (says Bligh), 
 while I was yet asleep, Mr Christian, officer of the watch, Charles 
 ChurchiU, ship's corporal, John Mills, gunner's mate, and Thomas 
 Burkitt, seaman, came into my cahin, and seizing me, tied my 
 hands with a cord behind my back, threatening me with instant 
 death if I spoke or made the least noise. I called, however, as 
 loud as I could, in hopes of assistance ; but they had already 
 secured the officers who were not of their party, by placing sen- 
 tinels at the doors. There were three men at my cabin door ; 
 Christian had a cutlass in his hand, the others had muskets and 
 ))ayonets." 
 
 (') Stanza xxxviii. 
 Oo; thou art but dethroned, and I have forfeit heaven ! 
 
 " Notwithstanding the roughness with which I was treated 
 (says Bligh) the remembrance of past kindness produced some 
 signs of remorse in Christian. When they were forcing me out 
 of the ship, I asked him if this treatment was a proper return 
 for the many instances he had received of my friendship? — he 
 appeared disturbed at my question, and answered with mueh 
 emotion, ' "That, Captain Bligh — that is the thing ; — I am in 
 hell — I am in hell !' " 
 
NOTES. 195 
 
 (*) Stanza xlix. 
 four thousand miles of conquered sea. 
 
 " It appeared scarcely credible to ourselves that, in an open 
 boat, and so poorly provided, we should have been able to reach 
 the coast of Timor in 41 days after leaving Taffoa, having in 
 that time run, by our log, a distance of three thousand six hun- 
 dred and eighteen nautical miles ; and that, notwithstanilhig 
 our extreme distress, no one should have perished in the V03'- 
 
 III. 
 
 (') Stanza xxi. 
 
 the old Otoo — 
 
 " The Otoo, or reigning sovereign, and other principal na- 
 lives, were very inquisitive and anxious to know what had be- 
 come of Bligh and the rest of the crew. They were told that 
 they had most unexpectedly fallen in with Captain Cook at an 
 island he had just discovered, called Whytootakee ; that Elijah 
 and the others were stopping there to assist Captain Cook in the 
 business he had in hand ; that he had appointed Mr Christian 
 commander of the Bounty, and that he was how come by his 
 orders for an additional supply of hogs, goats, fowls, bread-fruits. 
 &c. This artful story [from which, it will be seen, there is lit- 
 
 n2 
 
196 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 tie deviation in the Poem] was quite sufficient to impose on the 
 credulity of these humane and simple-minded islanders." 
 
 Stanza xxix. 
 Of the late crew, eight iron men, and one, 
 One officer, — 
 
 " The number of persons that remained in the Bounty after 
 her piratical seisuie was twenty-five ; of these, sixteen were, at 
 their own request, subsequently left at Otaheite, and nine only, 
 including Toung, the midshipman, accompanied Christian in 
 the Bounty to Pitcairn's Island. These sailed from Otaheite fi- 
 nally on the 21st September, taHng with them seven Otaheitan 
 men and twelve women." 
 
 IV. 
 
 (') Stanza ii. 
 Here he resolved to strand the Bounty straight-^ 
 
 Captain Piper of the " Tagus,'" who with Sir Thomas Staines 
 of the " Briton," landed on Pitcairn's Island on the 18th Sep- 
 tember 1814 — about twenty-five years subsequent to the date of 
 the mutiny — ^learned from Adams, the last of the Mutineers, 
 " that Christian, on finding no good anchorage close to the 
 island, and the Bounty being too weakly manned again to en- 
 trust themselves in her at sea, determined to run her into a 
 
NOTES. 19T 
 
 small creek against the cliff, in order the more conveniently to 
 get out of her such articles as might be of use, or necessary for 
 forming an establishment on the island, and to land the hogs, 
 goats, &c., which they had brought from Otaheite ; and having 
 accomplished this he ordered her to be set on fire, with the view 
 probably of preventing any escape from the island, and also to 
 remove an object that if seen might excite the curiosity of some 
 passing vessel." 
 
 Stanza xx. 
 tuas his name — 
 
 This character, as represented in the Poem, is very much a 
 creation of the fancy. Little is known about the original, who 
 probably was an Englishman. In the account sent home he is 
 thus described : — " Edward Young, midshipman, aged 22 years-, 
 dark complexion, and rather a bad look." It was Stewart, an- 
 other of the midshipmen, a highlander from the Orkneys (who, 
 however, remained at Otaheite, and afterwards perished in the 
 " Pandora "), who might have answered to the description here 
 grafted on Young. The latter, however, would seem to have 
 been much attached to Christian, as he was the only officer who 
 stuck to him to the last. Among other particulars, Adams 
 stated to Captain Beechy, when the latter visited Piteaim, that 
 Young was a great favourite with the women, who saved his 
 life aa depicted, in the Poem. Spme poetic liberties have been 
 taken with the manner of his death ; according to Adams' ac- 
 count, he died of consumption. 
 
198 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 (') Stanza xli. 
 
 What was their crime, poor Alhin'a ions forlorn! 
 That fire and force reft them of all they had? 
 
 Of late years, a good deal has been written — in the coluiuns 
 of the Times and elsewhere — in reprobation of the ruthless con- 
 version of some of the finest mountain districts of Scotland into 
 immense deer-forests, for the pastime of noble proprietors, to 
 the exclusion of the native pastoral inhabitants. Among others, 
 ou the other hand, a popular American authoress has essayed 
 to persuade the British as well as the American public, that the 
 i-elebrated Sutheblakd Cleabanoes, in particular, are mere 
 myths, or something worse — the false and malicious stories of 
 political agitators. According to Mrs Beecher Stowe's version 
 of these alleged cruelties, as she condescendingly unveils them 
 in her " Sunny Memoirs," our great Highland proprietors have 
 been grossly calumniated. From the opportunities she noto- 
 riously enjoyed, during her visits to this country, of receiving 
 aristocratic information on such topics — awhile, probably, the 
 time she could afford to devote to popular inquiry was not so 
 very extensive — the illustrious authoress of " Uncle Tom's Ca- 
 bin " has naturally taken a partial view of the whole matter. 
 So much so, that, as Byron said of Moore that " little Tommy 
 dearly loved a Lord," so some troublesome people, here in 
 Scotland — who entertain no more doubt of the atrocities 
 which have marked the true history of Highland Clearances, 
 than Mrs Stowe has of those which have attached to American 
 
NOTES. 199 
 
 Slavery — are rather too fond, perhaps, of fitting Byron's allu- 
 sion to a more capacious figure, and saying of Mrs Stowe, that 
 when, despite her Antislavery and Eepublican principles, she 
 (gratuitously) set herself to white-wash, on very one-sided tes- 
 timony, those dark transactions — she too dearly loved a Duchess. 
 In truth, it was not quite modest of Mrs Stowe to come out 
 so very strong, as the patroness of her Ducal English enter- 
 tainers. 
 
 Of comparatively recent Highland Clearances we need say 
 nothing : the effect of the whole is before xis, in the melancholy 
 and incontrovertible fact of the depopulation of the Highlands 
 of Scotland, once the best nursery in Europe for soldiers. But, 
 as a concise and intelligible account of the circumstances under 
 which the Sutherland Clearances originated, we may reprint the 
 following statement of facts from the Caledonian Mercmy (of the 
 9th September 1856), one of the oldest and most respectable of 
 the newspa;pers published in Edinburgh : — 
 
 " The SuTHEBiAND OiEAEANOEs date their commencement 
 some fifty years ago, at a time when the people of these islands 
 were much less informed respecting what was being transacted 
 at their own doors than they now are of what is taMng place at 
 the most distant parts of the globe. It is questionable, indeed, 
 if with the publicity which now exists, they could ever have 
 been carried out at all. Those who wish to know the wrongs 
 endured by their countrymen would do well to possess them- 
 selves of the valuable pamphlet by Mr Donald M'Leod upon the 
 Sutherland Clearances, recently republished by some patriotic 
 gentiemen of Greenock. Mr M'Leod was an eye-witness of 
 
200 THE MtJTINEEES. 
 
 many of the events whiclx lie details. The facts he has made 
 public have never, we helieve, been seriously challenged or con- 
 tradicted. 
 
 " The evictions in Sutherland began in the year 1807. The 
 factors, being new to the work, contented themselves with the 
 removal of a hundred families or so at a time. At this rate, 
 however, as the country was then pretty densely populated, they 
 saw that they would be a very long time in effecting their ends. 
 From 1811, accordingly, they conducted their operations on a 
 much more extended scale. They served summonses of remo- 
 val on large portions of the inhabitants, divided the lands into 
 extensive lots, and advertised them to let for sheep-farms. The 
 people thus thrown destitute were glad to avail themselves of any 
 opening which afforded a feasible prospect of relief. Some hun- 
 dreds of their number embraced the offer of Lord Selkirk to emi- 
 grate to his estates on the Red Eiver, Korth America. After a 
 tedious and disastrous passage, however, they were left in an 
 inclement wilderness, without protection against the savages, 
 who put the greater part to death, and plundered the others of 
 what little property they had brought with them. 
 
 " The next great clearance recorded by Mr M'Leod took place 
 in 1814. In the month of March of that year, a large number 
 of the inhabitants of Farr and Kildonau were summoned to 
 give up their farms at the following Whitsunday. To ensure 
 their removal, the factor, who had taken the lands for himself, 
 gave orders, at the same time, to set the heath pasture on fire. 
 The cattle, by this cruel device, being deprived of their main 
 support, scattered themselves over the island, and were either 
 
NOTES. 201 
 
 lost or disposed of for a trifle. The crops for the ensuing har- 
 vest belonged, as usual, to the outgoing tenants, but the fences 
 having been broken down, the poor people were actually hunted 
 by the new herds and their dogs from watching their own corn. 
 Their houses, and the bams, with other farming appurtenances, 
 save a few required by the new tenant, had been burned to the 
 ground, so that those who were left behind to look after the 
 crops found no place to shelter them. The spring had been se- 
 vere. The harvest was wet, cold, and disastrous. And thus, 
 after all their labours and privations, they lost not only their 
 cattle but nearly the whole of their crops. These enormities 
 were not allowed to pass altogether with impunity. The She- 
 riff-Substitute of the county took a precognition of the case, 
 and, in a confldential letter to Lord Stafford, unhesitatingly 
 gave it as his opinion, ' that a more numerous catalogue of 
 crimes, perpetrated by an individual, had seldom disgraced any 
 county, or sullied the pages of a precognition in Scotland.' The 
 factor, one Sellar, was brought to trial before the Court of Jus- 
 ticiary at Inverness ; but by some incomprehensible influence, 
 he was acquitted, while the integrity of the Sheriffs led to their 
 dismissal immediately after the trial ! 
 
 "After this, the evictions were proceeded with in a somewhat 
 more deliberate manner till the years 1819 and 1820. At this 
 period, the factors, taking advantage of the prostrate condition 
 and broken spirit of the people, betook themselves to a new 
 scheme for facilitating their operations, fey alternate threats 
 and promises, they induced the housellolders to sign a bond 
 containing a promise of removal. Armed with this, and regard- 
 
202 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 less of their promises, they began the work of devastation hy 
 setting fire to the houses of the small tenants in extensive dis- 
 tricts. The whole parish of Kildonan, with part of the parishes 
 of Farr, Bogart, and Golspie, was involved in the calamity. ' I 
 was an eye-witness (says Mr M'Leod) of the scene. Strong 
 parties for each district, furnished with faggots and other com- 
 bustibles, rushed on the dwellings of this devoted people, and 
 proceeded in their work with the greatest rapidity till about 
 three hundred houses were in flames. Little or no time was 
 given for removal of persons or property — the people striving to 
 remove the sick and helpless before the fire should reach them 
 — next struggling to save the most valuable of their effects. 
 The cries of the women and children — the roaring of the af- 
 frighted cattle, hunted at the same time by the yelling dogs of 
 the shepherds amid the smoke and fire — altogether presented a 
 scene that completely bafSes description. The conflagration 
 lasted six days, till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to 
 ashes or smoking ruins.' We may spare ourselves further re- 
 cital of such harrowing details. When we mention that, oh the 
 Sutherland estate alone, between the years 1811 and 1820, not 
 fewer than fifteen thousand inhabitants were expelled from 
 their holdings, and their villages demolished or burned, we have 
 said sufScient to show the ruthless spirit in which the work of 
 desolation has been carried out amongst the ill-fated High- 
 landers." 
 
NOTES. 203 
 
 THE INSURRECTION. 
 
 One plot for the extermination of the Europeans having 
 been defeated by the watchfulness of the Otaheitan women, all 
 of whom seem to have deserted their countrymen, — " matters 
 went on tolerably for a year or two longer ; but the oppression 
 which the Otaheitans endured, more particularly from Quintal 
 and M'Koy, the most active and determined of the Mutineers, 
 drove them to another plot, which hut too fuUy succeeded. A 
 day was ftxed for attaoHnfe and putting to death all the Eng- 
 lishmen Adams was wounded, but succeeded in 
 
 making terms with the Otaheitans. Young, who was a great 
 jfavourite with the women, was secreted by them during the at- 
 tack. M'Koy and Quintal escaped to the mountains. Here 
 this day of bloodshed ended, leaving only four Englishmen 
 alive out of nine. It was a day of emancipation to the blacks, 
 who were now masters of the island, and of humiliation and re- 
 tribution to the whites. The men of colour, however, now be- 
 gan to quarrel about choosing the women, the result of which 
 was the destruction of the whole of the former, some falling by 
 the hands of the women.'' [It will be seen how far, in the 
 Poem, these facts have been exaggerated.] 
 
 (*) Stanza t. 
 Here moody Christian sometimes used to dwell — 
 " That Christian was always uneasy in his mind aboat his 
 
204 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 own safety, is proved by his having selected a cave at the ex- 
 tremity of the high ridge of craggy hiUs that runs across the 
 island, as his intended place of refuge, in the event of any ship- 
 of-war discovering the retreat of the Mutineers, in which cave 
 he resolved to sell his life as dearly as he could. In this recess 
 he always kept a store of provisions, and near it erected a small 
 hut, weU concealed hy trees, which served the purpose of a 
 watch-house. So difficult was the approach to this cave, that 
 even if a party were successful in crossing the ridge, he inight 
 have hid defiance, as long as his amunition lasted, to any force." 
 
 (') Stanza xxxii. 
 
 Oft, say they, it was seen — 
 
 " As the manner of Christian's death has been differently 
 reported to each different visitor, by Adams, the only evidence 
 in existence, with the exception of three or four Otaheitan wo- 
 men and a few infants, some singular circumstances may here 
 be mentioned that happened at home, just at the time of Fol- 
 gar's visit [to the island], and which render his death on Pit- 
 caim's Island almost a matter of doubt. About the years 1808- 
 1809, a very general opinion was prevalent in the neighbour- 
 hood of the lakes of Cumberland and "Westmoreland, that Chris- 
 tian was in that part of the country, and made frequent visits 
 to an aunt who was living there. Being the near relative of 
 Mr Christian Curwen, long M. P. for Carlisle, and himself a 
 native, he was well known in the neighbourhood. This, how- 
 ever, might be passed over as mere gossip, had not another cir- 
 
NOTKS. 205 
 
 cumstance happened just about the same time, for the truth of 
 which the editor [Sir John Barrow] does not hesitate to vouch. 
 In Fore Street, Plymouth Dock, Captain Heywood (formerly 
 one of the officers of the Bounty) found himself one day walk- 
 ing behind a man whose shape had so much the appearance of 
 Christian's that he involuntarily quickened his pace. Both 
 were walking very fast, and the rapid steps behind him having 
 roused the stranger's attention, he suddenly turned his face, 
 looked at Heywood, and immediately ran off. But the face was 
 as much Kke Christian's as the back, and Heywood, exceeding- 
 ly excited, ran also. Both ran as fast as they were able, but 
 the stranger had the advantage, and after making several turns 
 disappeared. That Christian should be in England, Heywood 
 considered to be highly improbable, though not out of the scope 
 of possibility ; for at this time no account of him whatever had 
 been received since they parted at Otaheite ; at any rate, the 
 resemblance, the agitation, and the efforts of the stranger to 
 elude him, were circumstances too strange not to make a deep 
 impression on his mind." 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE LAST MAN. 
 " At the time when Folgar visited the island, Alexander Smith 
 went by his proper name, and that he had changed it to John 
 Adams in the intermediate time between his visit and that of 
 
206 THE MUTINEERS. 
 
 Sir Thomas Staines ; but it does not appear in any of the ac- 
 lounts which have been given of this interesting colony, when 
 or for what reason he assumed the latter name." 
 
 (') Stanza ix. 
 At l.ength hefomid the kind of tree he sought — 
 
 " M'Koy, it appears, had formerly been employed in a dis- 
 tillery, and being much addicted to ardent spirits, set about 
 making experiments on the tee-root (draccena terminalis), and at 
 length unfortunately succeeded in producing an intoxicating li- 
 quor. This success induced his companion, Quintal, .to turn 
 his kettle into a still. The consequence was, that these two men 
 were in a constant state of drunkenness, particularly M'Koy, in 
 whom it had the effect of producing fits of delirium, in one of 
 which he [not Quintal] threw himself from a cliff, and was kill- 
 ed on the spot." 
 
 (^) Stanza xix. 
 lie strait resolved his enemies to smite — 
 
 It was Quintal, not M'Koy, who, " early (after his compan- 
 ion's death) sought an opportunity of putting Adams and Young 
 to death. He was foi'tunately foiled in Ida first attempt, but 
 swore to repeat it. Adams and Young, having no doubt he 
 would follow up his intention, and fearing he might be more 
 successful in the next attempt, came to the resolution that, hs 
 their own lives were not safe while he was in existence, tliey 
 were justified in putting him to death ; which they did." 
 
NOTES. 207 
 
 (') Stanza xxvii. 
 And for Ms last long sleep prepaired sad weary Young. 
 
 " This man (viz., Alexander Smith, alias John Adams) and 
 Young were now the sole survivors out of the fifteen males that 
 had landed on the island. Young was a man of education, and 
 of a serious turn of mind, and, as Beeohy says, it would have 
 been wonderful, after the many dreadful scenes at which they 
 liad assisted, if the solitude and tranquillity that ensued had not 
 disposed them to repentance. They had a Bible and a Prayer- 
 book, which were found in the Bounty, and they tead the Church 
 Service every Sunday. Young, however, Was not long suifered 
 to survive his repentance. An asthmatic complaint terminated 
 his existence about a year after the death of Quintal ; and Adams 
 wiis now left the sole survivor of the guilty and misguided Mu- 
 tineers of the Bounty." 
 
 (') Stanza xxxv 
 Tliey salute who are about to die — 
 
 " Those about to die salute thee." It was the custom of 
 tlie Roman gladiators, before destroying each other in the arena, 
 to utter these words, inaking an obeisance to the Emperor, when 
 lie was present at the bloody spectacle. 
 
 END Ot SOTEB. 
 
ajf/lliii^i^te 
 
 WM