 | Sea Songs |  |
59
TO THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS.
We'd been boxing about some six months in the old tub we'd learned to hate well,
Roll and dip went our rusty brown whaler, plunging through the Pacific's long swell,
We'd not a scrap left of fresh prog; every bit of a green thing was eat;
Sweet potatoes, bananas, yams, all, their taste we'd long learned to forget;
Just one old cock was left in the hen-coop for the skipper, the toughest and last,
And we felt till that rooster he'd swallowed, our anchor we never should cast;
How we wished the neck wrung of that red-comb, as we drove on, our look-out but sky
And sea, just as if never more a green shore-line would rise to our eye;
Old Jem at the tiller half-dozed, as steady strong tradewinds behind,
Day and night we rolled on like the doomed Flying Dutchman that no port can find;
We pulled after some twenty spouters, but speared but just six of the score,
And, the less there was oil in our hold, the harder the riled skipper swore.
Roll and dip went our rusty brown whaler, plunging through the Pacific's long swell,
We'd not a scrap left of fresh prog; every bit of a green thing was eat;
Sweet potatoes, bananas, yams, all, their taste we'd long learned to forget;
Just one old cock was left in the hen-coop for the skipper, the toughest and last,
And we felt till that rooster he'd swallowed, our anchor we never should cast;
How we wished the neck wrung of that red-comb, as we drove on, our look-out but sky
And sea, just as if never more a green shore-line would rise to our eye;
60
Day and night we rolled on like the doomed Flying Dutchman that no port can find;
We pulled after some twenty spouters, but speared but just six of the score,
And, the less there was oil in our hold, the harder the riled skipper swore.
We were sulky and glum; every watch yet more sulky and glummer we grew;
And whether our cruise was to last on till doomsday, why, none of us knew;
So we growled and growled deeper at all, junk and biscuit and skipper and tub;
But how, without quite mutineering, to trim course for land, was the rub;
The trades drove us easy enough and our old lass she followed her nose,
While we all lay about with just no more to do than to grumble and doze,
And see with our eyes half asleep, a near white strand beyond a reefs roar,
And the fresh longed-for bread-fruit-tree groves, goldenfruited right down to the shore;
And dusky young girls, to the beach, who call us with laugh, look and smile,
And tattooed brown niggers and cabins, all the sights of a blest South Sea isle;
Was it pleasant, I ask you, to find that our peepers played dreams and no more?
And such dreams, as we waked up, why, lord! how they set us alonging for shore!
And whether our cruise was to last on till doomsday, why, none of us knew;
So we growled and growled deeper at all, junk and biscuit and skipper and tub;
But how, without quite mutineering, to trim course for land, was the rub;
The trades drove us easy enough and our old lass she followed her nose,
While we all lay about with just no more to do than to grumble and doze,
And see with our eyes half asleep, a near white strand beyond a reefs roar,
And the fresh longed-for bread-fruit-tree groves, goldenfruited right down to the shore;
61
And tattooed brown niggers and cabins, all the sights of a blest South Sea isle;
Was it pleasant, I ask you, to find that our peepers played dreams and no more?
And such dreams, as we waked up, why, lord! how they set us alonging for shore!
Cook potted the rooster at last; he was bolted all, then came a shout
From the skipper to Jack at the wheel, “Look, man, how her head yaws about!
“Keep her up to it tight!” then says Jack with a grin that was all in his eye,
“She won't go to windward, you see, anyhow now, and, captain, for why?
“There's land down to leeward she smells and her timbers, land-grown, know it's wrong
“Not to sight earth again just a bit, just to hug shore for which they so long;”
Then the skipper sang out and all felt as they hadn't felt many a day,
“Well, head her then for Nukuheva, she'll steer when she's cruising that way.”
And, bless the old lass, how she stepped it, as if she did just understand,
She was to have some rest at last, cosy, inshore, aside of the land;
It didn't take her long to find Nukuheva, her old nose to lay
Snug anchored beneath the tall palms that hung green right down in to the bay.
From the skipper to Jack at the wheel, “Look, man, how her head yaws about!
“Keep her up to it tight!” then says Jack with a grin that was all in his eye,
“She won't go to windward, you see, anyhow now, and, captain, for why?
“There's land down to leeward she smells and her timbers, land-grown, know it's wrong
“Not to sight earth again just a bit, just to hug shore for which they so long;”
Then the skipper sang out and all felt as they hadn't felt many a day,
“Well, head her then for Nukuheva, she'll steer when she's cruising that way.”
62
She was to have some rest at last, cosy, inshore, aside of the land;
It didn't take her long to find Nukuheva, her old nose to lay
Snug anchored beneath the tall palms that hung green right down in to the bay.
| Sea Songs | |