Rarely
can so much mixed autobiography and romance have been packed into six
stanzas--and here too the adventurous East and West meet:--
I've shipped my cable, messmates, I'm dropping down
with the tide;
I have my sailing orders while ye at anchor ride,
And never, on fair June morning, have I put out to sea
With clearer conscience, or better hope, or heart more light and free.
An Ashburnham! A Fairfax! Hark how the corslets ring!
Why are the blacksmiths out to-day, beating those men at the spring?
Ho, Willie, Hob and Cuddie!--bring out your boats amain,
There's a great red pool to swim them o'er, yonder in Deadman's Lane.
Nay, do not cry, sweet Katie--only a month afloat
And then the ring and the parson, at Fairlight Church, my doat.
The flower-strewn path--the Press Gang! No, I shall never see
Her little grave where the daisies wave in the breeze on Fairlight Lee.
"Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge!
Out with the hangers, messmates, but do not strike with the edge!"
Cries Charnock, "Scatter the faggots! Double that Brahmin in two!
The tall pale widow is mine, Joe, the little brown girl for you."
Young Joe (you're nearing sixty), why is your hide so dark?
Katie had fair soft blue eyes--who blackened yours? Why, hark!
The morning gun! Ho, steady! The arquebuses to me;
I've sounded the Dutch High Admiral's heart as my lead doth sound the
sea.
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