My Lyrical Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Safe, once more, in Old England:
That Heaven of a Sailor's dream!
No place like jolly Old England,
For a fellow to blow off the steam.
Bad luck to the Lubbers who sent us to die,
Or live on four ounces a day;
Running us out betwixt Sea and Sky
In that devil-may-care kind of way!

All who ever had sailed in her
Found the Megœra unlucky.
Hearts of the stoutest have quailed in her;
She was miserable and mucky.

Curses enough to sink her,
If curses can cling, she bore:
She was rusted, rotten, rat-forsaken,
Cankered and cursed to the core.

Why did I sail? Well, you see, Sir,
Somehow, a way we have got,
To stick to our duty, nor shirk it
Should we chance to draw a bad lot.
Some big-wig aloft overlooked the Ship,
It wasn't for us to complain.
And so, all round, 'twas a stiff upper lip,
If we never saw England again.

I think God Almighty picked the weather,
From Queenstown to the Cape:
But strive as we might to pull together,
We never got things ship-shape:
And you caught a look in the eyes of some
Who were married, that tried not to tell
Tales of the heart that had gone back home
With a blessing and last farewell.

But you can't keep a Sailor's soul from springing
And cresting the wave on his way,
Any more than the Lark will be stopped from singing
Even in the dawn of the day
When Battle lets loose the flood of its strife
For a world to be drowned in its wave,
And he, and his mate, and his young, out of life
Will be ground, with their nest for a grave.

Eleven days after we left the Cape,
Mast-high our troubles ran.

The Shadow that followed at last took shape—
On that day we lost a man,
And the fellows all said that in taking his trip
To the bottom, he sent his foot through
The thin frail side of the rotten old ship,
For his messmates to follow him too!

The next we sprang a leak; in the hold
Were two feet of water already!
A gale had arisen; the old Craft rolled
As if with her drinking unsteady.
Three days we pumped, and swore, and prayed,
And it seemed but a waste of breath:
Three days a lively game we played
At hide-and-seek with Death!

'Twas “Scottie” who crawled by himself at night,
Under the bunkers to keek;
With his head down one big hole, and his light
Through another, he found the leak.
And we looked, and we saw a sight in the gloom
Made us hold our breath for a space:
Wide open below was the door of doom;
Death close to us, face to face!

The water sprang like a plug in the street,
When the force is on at the main:
With such a Geyser under our feet,
No wonder we pumped in vain.
And as she lurched the waters rolled
With the sound of a sea inside;
Death-rattles that made your blood run cold.
And we found her iron hide

As full of holes as the sponge you wring;
Honey-comb'd through and through!

You couldn't patch the infernal thing,
For she wouldn't hold a screw:
Her mast's whole weight on a rotten plate
Of the bulging bottom! And we
Were sixteen hundred miles from land,
On a sail-less, island-less sea.

I once knew a Chap in consumption, who
Was spitting himself away
Bodily as he walked, and drew
His life out, day by day,
With his hacking, horrible cough. So it seemed
That our poor old Ship must be
A-spitting herself away, as she steamed,
Piecemeal, into the sea.

The pumps turned her inside out, each pull:
(Grave-diggers digging our grave!)
Till choked by the bits of the rotten old hull
They were cruelly trying to save.
And the old Ship shook, with her driving force,
As if body and soul must rive,
And throbbed, like the heart of a runaway horse
Ready to jump out alive.

Each thunder-thud of the piston-lunge
Made every rivet leap,
And I thought on my soul we should momently plunge
Right through her, all of a heap!
I felt each blow, through her thinness, smite
As the Condemned may hark
To the Scaffold Hammers, through his last night,
Working for death in the dark.

There we were, as good as entombed!
Our Captain gathered us then,
And told us as how the ship was doomed,
But, like true Englishmen,
We should stick together and make the most
Of the little chance we had.
So he gave the word to run for the coast
Of St. Paul, and work like mad!

Our grand Old Man hadn't much to say,
But he looked as firm as the land,
And got pretty near men's hearts that day:
Not a shake in his voice or his hand!
Through the Shadow of Death, that was gathering grim,
He saw his duty clear,
And did it. That was enough for him;
No time, no room for fear!

Just the Sailor you'd like to be
By your side on a sinking deck:
Just the man who would wait to see
The last soul safe from the wreck!
We cheered him in front of the battle, again
And again; three proud cheers gave him,
And then went at it, to live like men
Or die, as such, to save him!

We floundered in shallow water at last;
More dangerous than the deep!
“All hands on deck,” was the order passed;
Each man stood ready to leap—

Where were we? oh, down in our grave;
Nobody seemed to think
That we like the rest had Spirits to save:
And hadn't a drop to drink!

Stokers were forced to remain below
And keep on a strong head of steam:
I felt, each moment, the pipe must go.
Not one of us dared to dream
Of escape; my hair was on end, I know,
As the war-tug came to the worst.
But I thought we were nearest to death, and so
Perhaps might reach heaven first.

Then as she neared the bar we all
Shook hands and bade good-bye;
Each man, turning his face to the wall,
Drew himself up to die—
When, face to face suddenly brightens!
There's a babble of witless words!
And a spirit lives in us that lightens
Like air in the bones of birds!

Beautiful! light as an eggshell, over
The bar at a bound she springs,
As though all heaven had stooped, and given
Us a lift, and we went upon wings!
Death was past, we had leisure at last,
And a gasp of fresh breath to pray:
And I can tell you we were in heaven—
Had reached it another way.

We are safe. But, my God! if our England
In a coming hour should be found
Rust-eaten right to the heart of her,
And have to be run a-ground,
Wrecked at a shock, like our Hulk on the rock;
Whipped from the wide proud round
Of her own wave-world, with her Union Jack furled,
Of all her glory discrowned!

Saviours of England's money,
Is it so you think to save?
By stopping of holes with your Seamen's souls,
And ships like that for a grave?
To the other side o' the world you send
Us: which, doesn't matter a rap.
But we think it is cruel hard to end
Like rats that are drowned in a trap.

We never mind Death, for the land we love,
In the good old-fashioned way,
Should we mount to the glorified souls above
Through the smoke of some desperate day
That makes all safe for the Island-Home:
Proudly the last of our breath
We will send you, blood-bubbling up through the foam;
Only let us deserve our death!

Heart of Oak that our England
Should never neglect or forget—
Heart of Oak that our England
Must swim by, or sink in yet—

Ocean-home of the old Sea-Race—
Shall it become the prey
O' the mean and base, and a breeding-place
For the Creatures of Decay?

If we cannot keep the Sea, you Lubbers!
Your Cent. per Cent. must stop.
If we do not keep the sea, you Lubbers!
You cannot keep the Shop!
Our Empire's built a-top of the wave,
Not at the bottom, and we
Think they are the only men to save
By land, who will save us at Sea.