The Seven Seas

THE MIRACLES

I sent a message to my dear —A thousand leagues and more to her —The dumb sea-levels thrilled to hear,And Lost Atlantis bore to her.Behind my message hard I came,And nigh had found a grave for me;But that I launched of steel and flameDid war against the wave for me.Uprose the deep, by gale on gale,To bid me change my mind again —He broke his teeth along my rail,And, roaring, swung behind again.I stayed the sun at noon to tellMy way across the waste of it;I read the storm before it fellAnd made the better haste of it.Afar, I hailed the land at night —The towers I built had heard of me —And, ere my rocket reached its height,Had flashed my Love the word of me.Earth gave her chosen men of strength(They lived and strove and died for me)To drive my road a nation's length,And toss the miles aside for me.I snatched their toil to serve my needs —Too slow their fleetest flew for me —I tired twenty smoking steeds,And bade them bait a new for me.I sent the lightnings forth to seeWhere hour by hour she waited me.Among ten million one was she,And surely all men hated me!Dawn ran to meet us at my goal —Ah, day no tongue shall tell again! —And little folk of little soulRose up to buy and sell again!

THE NATIVE-BORN

We've drunk to the Queen – God bless her! —We've drunk to our mothers' land;We've drunk to our English brother(But he does not understand);We've drunk to the wide creation,And the Cross swings low to the morn,Last toast, and of obligation,A health to the Native-born!They change their skies above them,But not their hearts that roam!We learned from our wistful mothersTo call old England "home";We read of the English sky-lark,Of the spring in the English lanes,But we screamed with the painted loriesAs we rode on the dusty plains!They passed with their old-world legends —Their tales of wrong and dearth —Our fathers held by purchase,But we by the right of birth;Our heart's where they rocked our cradle,Our love where we spent our toil,And our faith and our hope and our honourWe pledge to our native soil!I charge you charge your glasses —I charge you drink with meTo the men of the Four New Nations,And the Islands of the Sea —To the last least lump of coralThat none may stand outside,And our own good pride shall teach usTo praise our comrade's pride.To the hush of the breathless morningOn the thin, tin, crackling roofs,To the haze of the burned back-rangesAnd the dust of the shoeless hoofs —To the risk of a death by drowning,To the risk of a death by drouth —To the men of a million acres,To the Sons of the Golden South.To the Sons of the Golden South, (Stand up!)And the life we live and know,Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,If a fellow fights for the little things he cares aboutWith the weight of a single blow!To the smoke of a hundred coasters,To the sheep on a thousand hills,To the sun that never blisters,To the rain that never chills —To the land of the waiting springtime,To our five-meal, meat-fed men,To the tall deep-bosomed women,And the children nine and ten!And the children nine and ten, (Stand up!)And the life we live and know,Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,If a fellow fights for the little things he cares aboutWith the weight of a two-fold blow!To the far-flung fenceless prairieWhere the quick cloud-shadows trail,To our neighbour's barn in the offingAnd the line of the new-cut rail;To the plough in her league-long furrowWith the gray Lake gulls behind —To the weight of a half-year's winterAnd the warm wet western wind!To the home of the floods and thunder,To her pale dry healing blue —To the lift of the great Cape combers,And the smell of the baked Karroo.To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head —To the reef and the water-gold,To the last and the largest Empire,To the map that is half unrolled!To our dear dark foster-mothers,To the heathen songs they sung —To the heathen speech we babbledEre we came to the white man's tongue.To the cool of our deep verandas —To the blaze of our jewelled main,To the night, to the palms in the moonlight,And the fire-fly in the cane!To the hearth of our people's people —To her well-ploughed windy sea,To the hush of our dread high-altarsWhere the Abbey makes us We;To the grist of the slow-ground ages,To the gain that is yours and mine —To the Bank of the Open Credit,To the Power-house of the Line!We've drunk to the Queen – God bless her! —We've drunk to our mothers' land;We've drunk to our English brother(And we hope he'll understand).We've drunk as much as we're able,And the Cross swings low to the morn;Last toast – and your foot on the table! —A health to the Native-born!A health to the Native-born, (Stand up!)We're six white men arow,All bound to sing o' the little things we care about,All bound to fight for the little things we care aboutWith the weight of a six-fold blow!By the might of our cable-tow, (Take hands!)From the Orkneys to the Horn,All round the world (and a little loop to pull it by),All round the world (and a little strap to buckle it),A health to the Native-born!

THE KING

"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;"With bone well carved he went away,Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,And jasper tips the spear to-day.Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,And he with these. Farewell, Romance!""Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;"We lift the weight of flatling years;The caverns of the mountain sideHold him who scorns our hutted piers.Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!""Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke;"By sleight of sword we may not win,But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smokeOf arquebus and culverin.Honour is lost, and none may tellWho paid good blows. Romance, farewell!""Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried;"Our keels ha' lain with every sea;The dull-returning wind and tideHeave up the wharf where we would be;The known and noted breezes swellOur trudging sail. Romance, farewell!""Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said;"He vanished with the coal we burn;Our dial marks full steam ahead,Our speed is timed to half a turn.Sure as the tidal trains we ply'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!""Romance!" the Season-tickets mourn,"He never ran to catch his train,But passed with coach and guard and horn —And left the local – late again!Confound Romance!"… And all unseenRomance brought up the nine-fifteen.His hand was on the lever laid,His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks,His whistle waked the snowbound grade,His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks;In dock and deep and mine and millThe Boy-god reckless laboured still.Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell,Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled,With unconsidered miracle,Hedged in a backward-gazing world;Then taught his chosen bard to say:"The King was with us – yesterday!"

THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS

Away by the lands of the Japanee,When the paper lanterns glowAnd the crews of all the shipping drinkIn the house of Blood Street Joe,At twilight, when the landward breezeBrings up the harbour noise,And ebb of Yokohama BaySwigs chattering through the buoys,In Cisco's Dewdrop Dining RoomsThey tell the tale anewOf a hidden sea and a hidden fight,When the Baltic ran from the Northern LightAnd the Stralsund fought the two!Now this is the Law of the Muscovite, that he proves with shot and steel,When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye must not take the seal,Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves,And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin and the seal they breed for themselves;For when the matkas seek the shore to drop their pups aland,The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroaring, band by band;And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath,The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path.Then dark they lie and stark they lie – rookery, dune, and floe,And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow.And God who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe,He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the lemming on the snow.But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear,The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year.English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank,And some be Scot, but the worst, God wot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank!It was the sealer Northern Light, to the Smoky Seas she bore.With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore.(Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light – oh! they were birds of a feather —Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!)And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein,But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin.There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur,When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her.The Baltic called her men and weighed – she could not choose but run —For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun(And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and shipAnd lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip).She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins,And the Northern Light sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins.They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear,When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near.Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed – three of them, black, abeam,And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam.There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free,And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian lawTo work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw!)They had not run a mile from shore – they heard no shots behind —When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind:"Bluffed – raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,You must set a thief to catch a thief – and a thief has caught us all!By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine,The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine!He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, and, faith, he has faked her well —But I'd know the Stralsund's deckhouse yet from here to the booms o' Hell.Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier,But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here —The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our sealWith your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal!Ring and blow for the Baltic now, and head her back to the bay,For we'll come into the game again with a double deck to play!"They rang and blew the sealers' call – the poaching cry o' the sea —And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an angry ship was she:And blind they groped through the whirling white, and blind to the bay again,Till they heard the creak of the Stralsund's boom and the clank of her mooring-chain.They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts,And: "Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?"A dog-toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine, and bared his flenching knife."Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life;But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see,And there's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three.So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill,And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill."Answered the snap of a closing lock and the jar of a gun-butt slid,But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did.The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak,And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke.The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free,(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!)The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue,But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew.An arm's length out and overside the banked fog held them bound;But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound.For one cried out on the name of God, and one to have him cease;And the questing volley found them both and bade them hold their peace.And one called out on a heathen joss and one on the Virgin's Name;And the schooling bullet leaped across and showed them whence they came.And in the waiting silences the rudder whined beneath,And each man drew his watchful breath slow taken 'tween the teeth —Trigger and ear and eye acock, knit brow and hard-drawn lips —Bracing his feet by chock and cleat for the rolling of the ships:Till they heard the cough of a wounded man that fought in the fog for breath,Till they heard the torment of Reuben Paine that wailed upon his death:"The tides they'll go through Fundy Race but I'll go never moreAnd see the hogs from ebb-tide mark turn scampering back to shore.No more I'll see the trawlers drift below the Bass Rock ground,Or watch the tall Fall steamer lights tear blazing up the Sound.Sorrow is me, in a lonely sea and a sinful fight I fall,But if there's law o' God or man you'll swing for it yet, Tom Hall!"Tom Hall stood up by the quarter-rail. "Your words in your teeth," said he."There's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty Three.So go in grace with Him to face, and an ill-spent life behind,And I'll take care o' your widows, Rube, as many as I shall find."A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a warlock Finn was he,And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's-breadth over the knee.Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath,"You'll wait a little, Rube," he said, "the Devil has called for both.The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close,And we'll go up to the Wrath of God as the holluschickie goes.O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles by,We've fought our fight, and the best are down. Let up and let us die!Quit firing, by the bow there – quit! Call off the Baltic's crew!You're sure of Hell as me or Rube – but wait till we get through."There went no word between the ships, but thick and quick and loudThe life-blood drummed on the dripping decks, with the fog-dew from the shroud,The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to gunnel laid,And they felt the sheerstrakes pound and clear, but never a word was said.Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit passed:"Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last?Curse on her work that has nipped me here with a shifty trick unkind —I have gotten my death where I got my bread, but I dare not face it blind.Curse on the fog! Is there never a wind of all the winds I knewTo clear the smother from off my chest, and let me look at the blue?"The good fog heard – like a splitten sail, to left and right she tore,And they saw the sun-dogs in the haze and the seal upon the shore.Silver and gray ran spit and bay to meet the steel-backed tide,And pinched and white in the clearing light the crews stared overside.O rainbow-gay the red pools lay that swilled and spilled and spread,And gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled between the careless dead —The dead that rocked so drunkenwise to weather and to lee,And they saw the work their hands had done as God had bade them see!And a little breeze blew over the rail that made the headsails lift,But no man stood by wheel or sheet, and they let the schooners drift.And the rattle rose in Reuben's throat and he cast his soul with a cry,And "Gone already?" Tom Hall he said. "Then it's time for me to die."His eyes were heavy with great sleep and yearning for the land,And he spoke as a man that talks in dreams, his wound beneath his hand."Oh, there comes no good in the westering wind that backs against the sun;Wash down the decks – they're all too red – and share the skins and run,Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light, – clean share and share for all,You'll find the fleets off Tolstoi Mees, but you will not find Tom Hall.Evil he did in shoal-water and blacker sin on the deep,But now he's sick of watch and trick, and now he'll turn and sleep.He'll have no more of the crawling sea that made him suffer so,But he'll lie down on the killing-grounds where the holluschickie go.And west you'll turn and south again, beyond the sea-fog's rim,And tell the Yoshiwara girls to burn a stick for him.And you'll not weight him by the heels and dump him overside,But carry him up to the sand-hollows to die as Bering died,And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair,And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!"Half-steam ahead by guess and lead, for the sun is mostly veiled —Through fog to fog, by luck and log, sail ye as Bering sailed;And, if the light shall lift aright to give your landfall plain,North and by west, from Zapne Crest, ye raise the Crosses Twain.Fair marks are they to the inner bay, the reckless poacher knows,What time the scarred see-catchie lead their sleek seraglios.Ever they hear the floe-pack clear, and the blast of the old bull-whale,And the deep seal-roar that beats off shore above the loudest gale.Ever they wait the winter's hate as the thundering boorga calls,Where northward look they to St. George, and westward to St. Paul's.Ever they greet the hunted fleet – lone keels off headlands drear —When the sealing-schooners flit that way at hazard year by year.Ever in Yokohama Port men tell the tale anewOf a hidden sea and a hidden fight,When the Baltic ran from the Northern LightAnd the Stralsund fought the two!

THE DERELICT

"And reports the derelict Mary Pollock still at sea."

Shipping News.I was the staunchest of our fleetTill the Sea rose beneath our feetUnheralded, in hatred past all measure.Into his pits he stamped my crew,Buffeted, blinded, bound and threw;Bidding me eyeless wait upon his pleasure.Man made me, and my willIs to my maker still,Whom now the currents con, the rollers steer —Lifting forlorn to spyTrailed smoke along the sky,Falling afraid lest any keel come near.Wrenched as the lips of thirst,Wried, dried, and split and burst,Bone-bleached my decks, wind-scoured to the graining;And, jarred at every roll,The gear that was my soulAnswers the anguish of my beams' complaining.For life that crammed me full,Gangs of the prying gullThat shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches.For roar that dumbed the galeMy hawse-pipes guttering wail,Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted watches.Blind in the hot blue ringThrough all my points I swing —Swing and return to shift the sun anew.Blind in my well-known skyI hear the stars go by,Mocking the prow that can not hold one true!White on my wasted pathWave after wave in wrathFrets 'gainst his fellow, warring where to send me.Flung forward, heaved aside,Witless and dazed I bideThe mercy of the comber that shall end me.North where the bergs careen,The spray of seas unseenSmokes round my head and freezes in the falling;South where the corals breed,The footless, floating weedFolds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawling.I that was clean to runMy race against the sun —Strength on the deep, am bawd to all disaster —Whipped forth by night to meetMy sister's careless feet,And with a kiss betray her to my master!Man made me, and my willIs to my maker still —To him and his, our peoples at their pier:Lifting in hope to spyTrailed smoke along the sky;Falling afraid lest any keel come near!

THE SONG OF THE BANJO

You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile —You mustn't leave a fiddle in the damp —You couldn't raft an organ up the Nile,And play it in an Equatorial swamp.I travel with the cooking-pots and pails —I'm sandwiched 'tween the coffee and the pork —And when the dusty column checks and tails,You should hear me spur the rearguard to a walk!With my "Pilly-willy-winky-winky popp!"[O it's any tune that comes into my head!]So I keep 'em moving forward till they drop;So I play 'em up to water and to bed.In the silence of the camp before the fight,When it's good to make your will and say your prayer,You can hear my strumpty-tumpty overnightExplaining ten to one was always fair.I'm the prophet of the Utterly Absurd,Of the Patently Impossible and Vain —And when the Thing that Couldn't has occurred,Give me time to change my leg and go again.With my "Tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tum-pa tump!"In the desert where the dung-fed camp-smoke curledThere was never voice before us till I led our lonely chorus,I – the war-drum of the White Man round the world!By the bitter road the Younger Son must tread,Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own, —'Mid the riot of the shearers at the shed,In the silence of the herder's hut alone —In the twilight, on a bucket upside down,Hear me babble what the weakest won't confess —I am Memory and Torment – I am Town!I am all that ever went with evening dress!With my "Tunk-a tunka-tunka-tunka-tunk!"[So the lights – the London lights – grow near and plain!]So I rowel 'em afresh towards the Devil and the Flesh,Till I bring my broken rankers home again.In desire of many marvels over sea,Where the new-raised tropic city sweats and roars,I have sailed with Young Ulysses from the quayTill the anchor rumbled down on stranger shores.He is blooded to the open and the sky,He is taken in a snare that shall not fail,He shall hear me singing strongly, till he die,Like the shouting of a backstay in a gale.With my "Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! Haul!"[O the green that thunders aft along the deck!]Are you sick o' towns and men? You must sign and sail again,For it's "Johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit and trek!"Through the gorge that gives the stars at noon-day clear —Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our wheel —Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer —Down the valley with our guttering brakes asqueal:Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow,Where the many-shedded levels loop and twine,So I lead my reckless children from belowTill we sing the Song of Roland to the pine.With my "Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!"[And the axe has cleared the mountain, croup and crest!]So we ride the iron stallions down to drink,Through the cañons to the waters of the West!And the tunes that mean so much to you alone —Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose,Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings the groan —I can rip your very heartstrings out with those;With the feasting, and the folly, and the fun —And the lying, and the lusting, and the drink,And the merry play that drops you, when you're done,To the thoughts that burn like irons if you think.With my "Plunka-lunka-lunka-lunka-lunk!"Here's a trifle on account of pleasure past,Ere the wit that made you win gives you eyes to see your sinAnd the heavier repentance at the last.Let the organ moan her sorrow to the roof —I have told the naked stars the grief of man.Let the trumpets snare the foeman to the proof —I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran.My bray ye may not alter nor mistakeWhen I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of Things,But the Song of Lost Endeavour that I make,Is it hidden in the twanging of the strings?With my "Ta-ra-rara-rara-ra-ra-rrrp!"[Is it naught to you that hear and pass me by?]But the word – the word is mine, when the order moves the lineAnd the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die.The grandam of my grandam was the Lyre —[O the blue below the little fisher-huts!]That the Stealer stooping beach ward filled with fire,Till she bore my iron head and ringing guts!By the wisdom of the centuries I speak —To the tune of yestermorn I set the truth —I, the joy of life unquestioned – I, the Greek —I, the everlasting Wonder Song of Youth!With my "Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!"[What d'ye lack, my noble masters? What d'ye lack?]So I draw the world together link by link:Yea, from Delos up to Limerick and back!

"THE LINER SHE'S A LADY."

The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds —The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs;But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun',They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!Plyin' up an' down, Jenny, 'angin' round the Yard,All the way by Fratton tram down to Portsmouth 'Ard;Anythin' for business, an' we're growin' old —Plyin' up an' down, Jenny, waitin' in the cold!The Liner she's a lady by the paint upon 'er face,An' if she meets an accident they call it sore disgrace:The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, and 'e's always 'andy by,But, oh, the little cargo-boats! they've got to load or die.The Liner she's a lady, and 'er route is cut an' dried;The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e always keeps beside;But, oh, the little cargo-boats that 'aven't any man!They've got to do their business first, and make the most they can.The Liner she's a lady, and if a war should come,The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, and 'e'd bid 'er stay at home;But, oh, the little cargo-boats that fill with every tide!'E'd 'ave to up an' fight for them, for they are England's pride.The Liner she's a lady, but if she wasn't made,There still would be the cargo-boats for 'ome an' foreign trade.The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, but if we wasn't 'ere,'E wouldn't have to fight at all for 'ome an' friends so dear.'Ome an' friends so dear, Jenny, 'angin' round the Yard,All the way by Fratton tram down to Portsmouth 'Ard;Anythin' for business, an' we're growin' old —'Ome an' friends so dear, Jenny, waitin' in the cold!