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 En

gineer,

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 fifty-five! 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

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, my wickudness comes back.

The sins o' four-and-forty years, all up an' down the seas, Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed.

our trespasses.

Forgie's

Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in 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 abodeJane 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 lurk

in' there?

M'ANDREW'S HYMN

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?

all, our screw.

An' under

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 Thy

care

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,

M'ANDREW'S HYMN

But-average fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra' port to port

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

Maybe they steam from grace to wrath-to sin by folly led,

It isna mine to judge their path-their lives are on my head.

Mine at the last-when all is done it all comes back to

me,

The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea. We'll tak' one stretch-three weeks an' odd by any road ye steer

Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington-ye need an engineer.

Fail there-ye've time to weld your shaft-ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke;

Or make Kerguelen under sail-three jiggers burned wi' smoke!

An' home again, the Rio run: it's no child's play to go Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe an'

blow

The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an' turn an' shift

Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the big South drift.

(Hail, snow an' ice that praise the Lord: I've met them at their work,

An' wished we had anither route or they anither kirk.) Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for though Thy Power brings

All skill to naught, Ye'll understand a man must think o' things.