Solomon Kane's Homecoming

(Variant)

The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs,

the wind was slashed with foam,

The long tides moaned along the strand

when Solomon Kane came home.

He walked in silence through the streets

of the little Devon town,

The folk all followed whispering

all up the streets and down.

They whispered of his sun-bronzed hue

and his deep strange stare;

They followed him into the tavern

and thronged about him there.

He heard, as a man hears in a dream,

the old worn rafters creak,

And Solomon lifted his drinking jack

and spoke as a ghost might speak:

“Where are the lads that gathered here

so many years ago?

“Drake and Hawkins and Oxenham,

Grenville and Leigh and Yeo?

“Was it so long ago,” said Kane,

“sat Richard Grenville there?

“The dogs of Spain,” said Solomon Kane,

“by God, we fought them fair!

“For a day and a night and a day again

we held their fleet at bay,

“Till their round shot riddled us through and through

and ripped our masts away.

“Where is Bess?” said Solomon Kane.

“It racked me hard to go –

“But I heard the high tide grate the keel

and I heard the sea-wind blow.

“I left her – though it racked my heart

to see the lass in tears –”

“In the quiet churchyard by the sea

she has slept these seven years.”

The sea-wind moaned at the window pane

and Solomon bowed his head.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

and the fairest fade,” he said.

His eyes were mystical deep pools

that drown unearthly things,

And Solomon lifted up his head

and spoke of his wanderings.

“My feet have tracked a bloody way

across the trackless sands,

“Mine eyes have looked on sorcery

in the dark and naked lands.

“And I have known a deathless queen

in a city old as Death;

“Her smile was like a serpent's kiss,

her kiss was Lilith's breath.

“And I have roamed in grisly hills

where dead men walked by night,

“And I have seen a tattered corpse

stand up to blast men's sight.

“And I have heard the death-chant rise

in the slaver's barracoon,

“And I have seen a winged fiend fly,

all naked, in the moon.

“My feet are weary of wandering

and age comes on apace –

“I fain would dwell in Devon now,

forever in my place.”

The shouting of the ocean-winds

went whistling down the gale,

And Solomon Kane raised up his head

like a hound that snuffs the trail.

A-down the winds like a running pack,

the hounds of the ocean bayed,

And Solomon Kane rose up again

and girt his Spanish blade.

Hands held him hard but the vagrant gleam

in his eyes grew blind and bright,

And Solomon Kane put by the folk

and went into the night.

A wild moon rode in the wild white clouds,

the waves their white crests showed

When Solomon Kane went forth again,

and no man knew his road.

They saw him etched against the moon

on the hill in clouds that thinned,

They heard an eery, echoed call

that whistled down the wind.

Out of the tavern into the night

went Solomon Kane once more,

He heard the clamor of the winds,

he had harked to the ocean's roar.