ONE VICEROY RESIGNS That stays at least. The rest may pass-may passYour heritage and I can teach you naught. 'High trust,' 'vast honour,' 'interests twice as vast,' But not the five to follow. What's that? One! Don't dream. O THE GALLEY-SLAVE H gallant was our galley from her carven steeringwheel To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel; The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air, But no galley on the water with our galley could compare! Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold; The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below, As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go. It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and thenIf they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men! As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss, And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lovers' kiss. THE GALLEY-SLAVE Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped, We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead. Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we The servants of the sweep-head but the masters of the sea! By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and sheered, Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared? Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew; Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through. Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death? Nay, our very babes would mock you had they time for idle breath. But to-day I leave the galley and another takes my place; There's my name upon the deck-beam-let it stand a little space. I am free to watch my messmates beating out to open main; Free of all that Life can offer-save to handle sweep again. By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal; By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the brine, I am paid in full for service-would that service still were mine! Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth, Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North. When the niggers break the hatches and the decks are gay with gore, And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore. She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket flare, When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there. Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by, To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die. Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away— Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day, When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath, And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their teeth. |