Page images
PDF
EPUB

Fine, clear an' dark-a full-draught breeze, wi'
Ushant out o' sight,

An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk tonight!

His wife's at Plymouth. . . . Seventy-One

Two-Three since he began—

Three turns for Mistress Ferguson

blame the man?

[ocr errors]

and who's to

There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow,

Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty

years ago.

(The year the Sarah Sands was burned. Oh roads we used to tread,

Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws-fra' Govan to Parkhead!)

Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say:

"Good-morrn, M'Andrew! Back again? An' how's your bilge to-day?"

Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair To drink Madeira wi' three Earls-the auld Fleet Engineer,

That started as a boiler-whelp-when steam and he were low.

I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi'

tow.

Ten pound was all the pressure then-Eh! Eh!—a man wad drive;

An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder fiftyfive!

We're creepin' on wi' each new rig-less weight an' larger power:

There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour! Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam

began

Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what about

the man?

The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile

o' sea:

Four time the span from earth to moon.

far, O Lord, from Thee?

How

That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon?

It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon.

Three feet were on the stokehold-floor-just slappin' to an' fro

An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show.

Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns-deep in my

soul an' black,

An' times like this, when things go smooth,

wickudness comes back.

my

The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the

seas,

Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. . Forgie's our trespasses. Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in

.

[ocr errors]

my gaze,

The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel

stays;

Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill my cup

o' wrong

Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong-Kong!

Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I

abode

Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road!

An' waur than all-my crownin' sin—rank blasphemy an' wild.

I was not four and twenty then-Ye wadna judge a child?

I'd seen the Tropics first that run- new fruit, new smells, new air

How could I tell-blind-fou wi' sun-the Deil was lurkin' there?

By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes;

By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from

those velvet skies,

In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down

the streets

An ijjit grinnin' in a dream-for shells an' parrakeets,

An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish

stuffed an' dried

Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside. Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land

breeze ca',

Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "M'Andrew, come awa'!"

Firm, clear an' low-no haste, no hate-the ghostly whisper went,

Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument: "Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel',

Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell.

They mak' Him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt,

A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt, Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod, But come wi' Us" (Now, who were They?) "an'

know the Leevin' God,

That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest,

But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the

woman's breast."

An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice

For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice.

'Twas on me like a thunderclap—it racked me

through an' through

Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an'

new

The Sin against the Holy Ghost? . . . An' under all,

our screw.

That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell,

Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell.

Third on the Mary Gloster then, and first that night in Hell!

Yet was Thy hand beneath my head, about my feet

[ocr errors][merged small]

Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair, But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer!

We dared not run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire,

An' I was drowsin' on the hatch-sick-sick wi'

doubt an' tire:

"Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire!"

Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs—again, an' once again,

When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'-chain;

An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty plain.

Light on the engine-room-no more-bright as our carbons burn.

I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past

return.

Obsairve. Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard

Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, But-average fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra' port to port

I am o' service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought?

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »