THE MERCHANTMEN KING SOLOMON drew merchantmen, For peacocks, apes, and ivory, Which Hiram rafted down, But we be only sailormen That use in London Town. Coastwise-cross-seas—round the world and back again Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits Plain-sail-storm-sail-lay your board and tack again And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots! We bring no store of ingots, Of spice or precious stones, In flame beneath the tropics, And some we got by purchase, At midnight, 'mid-sea meetings, And light the rolling homeward-bound By sport of bitter weather We're walty, strained, and scarred Our galley's in the Baltic, And our boom's in Mossel Bay! We've floundered off the Texel, Awash with sodden deals, We've slipped from Valparaiso With the Norther at our heels: We've ratched beyond the Crossets Beyond all outer charting We sailed where none have sailed, And saw the land-lights burning On islands none have hailed; Our hair stood up for wonder, But, when the night was done, There danced the deep to windward Blue-empty 'neath the sun! Strange consorts rode beside us The witch-fire climbed our channels, We've heard the Midnight Leadsman The sleet-cloud drave her hosts, When, manned by more than signed with us, We passed the Isle o' Ghosts! And north, amid the hummocks, We met the silent shallop That frighted whalers know; For, down a cruel ice-lane, Steer, North by West, his dead. So dealt God's waters with us But we were heading homeward Let go, let go the anchors; Ah, fools were we and blind— Coastwise The best we left behind! again, cross-seas - round the world and back Whither flaw shall fail us or the Trades drive down: Plain-sail-storm-sail— lay your board and tack And all to bring a cargo up to London Town! M'ANDREW'S HYMN LORD, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, An', taught by time, I tak' it so-exceptin' always From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod. John Calvin might ha' forged the same-enorrmous, certain, slow Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame-my " Institutio." I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; I'll stand the middle watch up here -alone wi' God an' these My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again. Slam-bang too much-they knock a wee-the crosshead-gibs are loose; But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse. |