Thy face is far from this our war,Our call and counter-cry,I shall not find Thee quick and kind,Nor know Thee till I die,Enough for me in dreams to seeAnd touch Thy garments' hem:Thy feet have trod so near to GodI may not follow them.Through wantonness if men professThey weary of Thy parts,E'en let them die at blasphemyAnd perish with their arts;But we that love, but we that proveThine excellence august,While we adore discover moreThee perfect, wise, and just.Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirredBeyond his belly-need,What is is Thine of fair designIn thought and craft and deed;Each stroke aright of toil and fight,That was and that shall be,And hope too high, wherefore we die,Has birth and worth in Thee.Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in feeTo gild his dross thereby,And knowledge sure that he endureA child until he die —For to make plain that man's disdainIs but new Beauty's birth —For to possess in lonelinessThe joy of all the earth.As Thou didst teach all lovers speechAnd Life all mystery,So shalt Thou rule by every schoolTill love and longing die,Who wast or yet the Lights were set,A whisper in the Void,Who shalt be sung through planets youngWhen this is clean destroyed.Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,Across the pressing dark,The children wise of outer skiesLook hitherward and markA light that shifts, a glare that drifts,Rekindling thus and thus,Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borneStrange tales to them of us.Time hath no tide but must abideThe servant of Thy will;Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhymeThe ranging stars stand still —Regent of spheres that lock our fears,Our hopes invisible,Oh 'twas certes at Thy decreesWe fashioned Heaven and Hell!Pure Wisdom hath no certain pathThat lacks thy morning-eyne,And captains bold by Thee controlledMost like to Gods design;Thou art the Voice to kingly boysTo lift them through the fight,And Comfortress of Unsuccess,To give the dead good-night —A veil to draw 'twixt God His LawAnd Man's infirmity,A shadow kind to dumb and blindThe shambles where we die;A rule to trick th' arithmeticToo base of leaguing odds —The spur of trust, the curb of lust,Thou handmaid of the Gods!O Charity, all patientlyAbiding wrack and scaith!O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheatsYet drops no jot of faith!Devil and brute Thou dost transmuteTo higher, lordlier show,Who art in sooth that lovely TruthThe careless angels know!Thy face is far from this our war,Our call and counter-cry,I may not find Thee quick and kind,Nor know Thee till I die.Yet may I look with heart unshookOn blow brought home or missed —Yet may I hear with equal earThe clarions down the List;Yet set my lance above mischanceAnd ride the barriere —Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis,My Lady is not there!
To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic,almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress,are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect uslike translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote;the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose,nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in Aprilas the English thrush. — THE ATHENAEUM.
Buy my English posies!Kent and Surrey may —Violets of the UndercliffWet with Channel spray;Cowslips from a Devon combe —Midland furze afire —Buy my English posiesAnd I'll sell your heart's desire!Buy my English posies!You that scorn the May,Won't you greet a friend from homeHalf the world away?Green against the draggled drift,Faint and frail and first —Buy my Northern blood-rootAnd I'll know where you were nursed:Robin down the logging-road whistles, “Come to me!”Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!Buy my English posies!Here's to match your need —Buy a tuft of royal heath,Buy a bunch of weedWhite as sand of MuysenbergSpun before the gale —Buy my heath and liliesAnd I'll tell you whence you hail!Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie —Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky —Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain —Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!Buy my English posies!You that will not turn —Buy my hot-wood clematis,Buy a frond o' fernGathered where the Erskine leapsDown the road to Lorne —Buy my Christmas creeperAnd I'll say where you were born!West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin —They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn —Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main —Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!Buy my English posies!Here's your choice unsold!Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,Buy the kowhai's goldFlung for gift on Taupo's face,Sign that spring is come —Buy my clinging myrtleAnd I'll give you back your home!Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine —Bell-bird in the leafy deep where theratastwine —Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain —Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!Buy my English posies!Ye that have your ownBuy them for a brother's sakeOverseas, alone.Weed ye trample underfootFloods his heart abrim —Bird ye never heeded,Oh, she calls his dead to him!Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land —Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.
The King has called for priest and cup,The King has taken spur and bladeTo dub True Thomas a belted knight,And all for the sake o' the songs he made.They have sought him high, they have sought him low,They have sought him over down and lea;They have found him by the milk-white thornThat guards the gates o' Faerie.'Twas bent beneath and blue above,Their eyes were held that they might not seeThe kine that grazed beneath the knowes,Oh, they were the Queens o' Faerie!“Now cease your song,” the King he said,“Oh, cease your song and get you dightTo vow your vow and watch your arms,For I will dub you a belted knight.“For I will give you a horse o' pride,Wi' blazon and spur and page and squire;Wi' keep and tail and seizin and law,And land to hold at your desire.”True Thomas smiled above his harp,And turned his face to the naked sky,Where, blown before the wastrel wind,The thistle-down she floated by.“I ha' vowed my vow in another place,And bitter oath it was on me,I ha' watched my arms the lee-long night,Where five-score fighting men would flee.“My lance is tipped o' the hammered flame,My shield is beat o' the moonlight cold;And I won my spurs in the Middle World,A thousand fathom beneath the mould.“And what should I make wi' a horse o' pride,And what should I make wi' a sword so brown,But spill the rings o' the Gentle FolkAnd flyte my kin in the Fairy Town?“And what should I make wi' blazon and belt,Wi' keep and tail and seizin and fee,And what should I do wi' page and squireThat am a king in my own countrie?“For I send east and I send west,And I send far as my will may flee,By dawn and dusk and the drinking rain,And syne my Sendings return to me.“They come wi' news of the groanin' earth,They come wi' news o' the roarin' sea,Wi' word of Spirit and Ghost and Flesh,And man, that's mazed among the three.”The King he bit his nether lip,And smote his hand upon his knee:“By the faith o' my soul, True Thomas,” he said,“Ye waste no wit in courtesie!“As I desire, unto my pride,Can I make Earls by three and three,To run before and ride behindAnd serve the sons o' my body.”“And what care I for your row-foot earls,Or all the sons o' your body?Before they win to the Pride o' Name,I trow they all ask leave o' me.“For I make Honour wi' muckle mouth,As I make Shame wi' mincin' feet,To sing wi' the priests at the market-cross,Or run wi' the dogs in the naked street.“And some they give me the good red gold,And some they give me the white money,And some they give me a clout o' meal,For they be people o' low degree.“And the song I sing for the counted goldThe same I sing for the white money,But best I sing for the clout o' mealThat simple people given me.”The King cast down a silver groat,A silver groat o' Scots money,“If I come wi' a poor man's dole,” he said,“True Thomas, will ye harp to me?”“Whenas I harp to the children small,They press me close on either hand.And who are you,” True Thomas said,“That you should ride while they must stand?“Light down, light down from your horse o' pride,I trow ye talk too loud and hie,And I will make you a triple word,And syne, if ye dare, ye shall 'noble me.”He has lighted down from his horse o' pride,And set his back against the stone.“Now guard you well,” True Thomas said,“Ere I rax your heart from your breast-bone!”True Thomas played upon his harp,The fairy harp that couldna lee,And the first least word the proud King heard,It harpit the salt tear out o' his ee.“Oh, I see the love that I lost long syne,I touch the hope that I may not see,And all that I did o' hidden shame,Like little snakes they hiss at me.“The sun is lost at noon — at noon!The dread o' doom has grippit me.True Thomas, hide me under your cloak,God wot, I'm little fit to dee!”'Twas bent beneath and blue above —'Twas open field and running flood —Where, hot on heath and dike and wall,The high sun warmed the adder's brood.“Lie down, lie down,” True Thomas said.“The God shall judge when all is done.But I will bring you a better wordAnd lift the cloud that I laid on.”True Thomas played upon his harp,That birled and brattled to his hand,And the next least word True Thomas made,It garred the King take horse and brand.“Oh, I hear the tread o' the fighting men,I see the sun on splent and spear.I mark the arrow outen the fernThat flies so low and sings so clear!“Advance my standards to that war,And bid my good knights prick and ride;The gled shall watch as fierce a fightAs e'er was fought on the Border side!”'Twas bent beneath and blue above,'Twas nodding grass and naked sky,Where, ringing up the wastrel wind,The eyas stooped upon the pie.True Thomas sighed above his harp,And turned the song on the midmost string;And the last least word True Thomas made,He harpit his dead youth back to the King.“Now I am prince, and I do wellTo love my love withouten fear;To walk wi' man in fellowship,And breathe my horse behind the deer.“My hounds they bay unto the death,The buck has couched beyond the burn,My love she waits at her windowTo wash my hands when I return.“For that I live am I content(Oh! I have seen my true love's eyes)To stand wi' Adam in Eden-glade,And run in the woods o' Paradise!”'Twas naked sky and nodding grass,'Twas running flood and wastrel wind,Where, checked against the open pass,The red deer belled to call the hind.True Thomas laid his harp away,And louted low at the saddle-side;He has taken stirrup and hauden rein,And set the King on his horse o' pride.“Sleep ye or wake,” True Thomas said,“That sit so still, that muse so long;Sleep ye or wake? — till the latter sleepI trow ye'll not forget my song.“I ha' harpit a shadow out o' the sunTo stand before your face and cry;I ha' armed the earth beneath your heel,And over your head I ha' dusked the sky.“I ha' harpit ye up to the throne o' God,I ha' harpit your midmost soul in three;I ha' harpit ye down to the Hinges o' Hell,And — ye — would — make — a Knight o' me!”
In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wageFor food and fame and woolly horses' pelt;I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric springMade the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and BergWere about me and beneath me and above.But a rival, of Solutr]/e, told the tribe my style wasoutr]/e—'Neath a tomahawk of diorite he fell.And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heartOf a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full,And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;And I wiped my mouth and said, “It is well that they are dead,For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong.”But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,And he told me in a vision of the night: —“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,And every single one of them is right!”. . . . .Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on meOf whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer[And a minor poet certified by Tr—ll].Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow,When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;Still we let our business slide — as we dropped the half-dressed hide —To show a fellow-savage how to work.Still the world is wondrous large, — seven seas from marge to marge, —And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu,And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the mooseAnd the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: —There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,And — every — single — one — of — them — is — right!
Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago,Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow.Fashioned the form of a tribesman — gaily he whistled and sung,Working the snow with his fingers.Read ye the Story of Ung!Pleased was his tribe with that image — came in their hundreds to scan —Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: “Verily, this is a man!Thus do we carry our lances — thus is a war-belt slung.Lo! it is even as we are. Glory and honour to Ung!”Later he pictured an aurochs — later he pictured a bear —Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair —Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, abhorrent, alone —Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them clearly on bone.Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and pushing and still —Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the boulder-hatched hill —Hunters and fishers and trappers, presently whispering low:“Yea, they are like — and it may be — But how does the Picture-man know?”“Ung — hath he slept with the Aurochs — watched where the Mastodon roam?Spoke on the ice with the Bow-head — followed the Sabre-tooth home?Nay! These are toys of his fancy! If he have cheated us so,How is there truth in his image — the man that he fashioned of snow?”Wroth was that maker of pictures — hotly he answered the call:“Hunters and fishers and trappers, children and fools are ye all!Look at the beasts when ye hunt them!” Swift from the tumult he broke,Ran to the cave of his father and told him the shame that they spoke.And the father of Ung gave answer, that was old and wise in the craft,Maker of pictures aforetime, he leaned on his lance and laughed:“If they could see as thou seest they would do what thou hast done,And each man would make him a picture, and — what would become of my son?“There would be no pelts of the reindeer, flung down at thy cave for a gift,Nor dole of the oily timber that comes on the Baltic drift;No store of well-drilled needles, nor ouches of amber pale;No new-cut tongues of the bison, nor meat of the stranded whale.“Thouhast not toiled at the fishing when the sodden trammels freeze,Nor worked the war-boats outward through the rush of the rock-staked seas,Yet they bring thee fish and plunder — full meal and an easy bed —And all for the sake of thy pictures.” And Ung held down his head.“Thouhast not stood to the Aurochs when the red snow reeks of the fight;Men have no time at the houghing to count his curls aright.And the heart of the hairy Mammoth, thou sayest, they do not see,Yet they save it whole from the beaches and broil the best for thee.“And now do they press to thy pictures, with opened mouth and eye,And a little gift in the doorway, and the praise no gift can buy:But — sure they have doubted thy pictures, and that is a grievous stain —Son that can see so clearly, return them their gifts again!”And Ung looked down at his deerskins — their broad shell-tasselled bands —And Ung drew downward his mitten and looked at his naked hands;And he gloved himself and departed, and he heard his father, behind:“Son that can see so clearly, rejoice that thy tribe is blind!”Straight on the glittering ice-field, by the caves of the lost Dordogne,Ung, a maker of pictures, fell to his scribing on boneEven to mammoth editions. Gaily he whistled and sung,Blessing his tribe for their blindness.Heed ye the Story of Ung!
“The three-volume novel is extinct.”
Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best —The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.Fair held the breeze behind us — 'twas warm with lovers' prayers.We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we tookWith maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.We asked no social questions — we pumped no hidden shame —We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.We weren't exactly Yussufs, but — Zuleika didn't tell.No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le — 'twas garlands on the mast,For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift againOur purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.They're just beyond your skyline, howe'er so far you cruiseIn a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.Swing round your aching search-light — 'twill show no haven's peace.Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's unrest —And you aren't one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!But when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head;While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shineUnvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!Hull down — hull down and under — she dwindles to a speck,With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.All's well — all's well aboard her — she's left you far behind,With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake?Well, tinker up your engines — you know your business best —She's taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!
The American Spirit speaks:
“If the Led Striker call it a strike,Or the papers call it a war,They know not much what I am like,Nor what he is, my Avatar.”Through many roads, by me possessed,He shambles forth in cosmic guise;He is the Jester and the Jest,And he the Text himself applies.The Celt is in his heart and hand,The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;Where, cosmopolitanly planned,He guards the Redskin's dry reserve.His easy unswept hearth he lendsFrom Labrador to Guadeloupe;Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown,Or panic-blinded stabs and slays:Blatant he bids the world bow down,Or cringing begs a crust of praise;Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.His hands are black with blood — his heartLeaps, as a babe's, at little things.But, through the shift of mood and mood,Mine ancient humour saves him whole —The cynic devil in his bloodThat bids him mock his hurrying soul;That bids him flout the Law he makes,That bids him make the Law he flouts,Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakesThe drumming guns that — have no doubts;That checks him foolish — hot and fond,That chuckles through his deepest ire,That gilds the slough of his despondBut dims the goal of his desire;Inopportune, shrill-accented,The acrid Asiatic mirthThat leaves him, careless 'mid his dead,The scandal of the elder earth.How shall he clear himself, how reachYour bar or weighed defence prefer?A brother hedged with alien speechAnd lacking all interpreter.Which knowledge vexes him a space;But while Reproof around him rings,He turns a keen untroubled faceHome, to the instant need of things.Enslaved, illogical, elate,He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fearsTo shake the iron hand of FateOr match with Destiny for beers.Lo, imperturbable he rules,Unkempt, disreputable, vast —And, in the teeth of all the schools,I — I shall save him at the last!
I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim —Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied.I shall go under by morning, and — Put that nurse outside.'Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn,And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn.Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too,I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned if I made you.Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three —Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea!Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it fight,And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite:For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness — what was it the papers a-had?“Not least of our merchant-princes.” Dickie, that's me, your dad!Ididn't begin with askings.Itook my job and I stuck;And I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck.Lord, what boats I've handled — rotten and leaky and old!Ran 'em, or — opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told.Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud turn you grey,And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way.The others they dursn't do it; they said they valued their life(They've served me since as skippers).Iwent, and I took my wife.Over the world I drove 'em, married at twenty-three,And your mother saving the money and making a man of me.Iwas content to be master, but she said there was better behind;She took the chances I wouldn't, and I followed your mother blind.She egged me to borrow the money, an' she helped me to clear the loan,When we bought half shares in a cheap 'un and hoisted a flag of our own.Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how,We started the Red Ox freighters — we've eight-and-thirty now.And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were clipper-freights,And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died in Macassar Straits —By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank —And we dropped her in fourteen fathom; I pricked it off where she sank.Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was christened for her,And she died in theMary Gloster. My heart, how young we were!So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran her ashore,But your mother came and warned me and I wouldn't liquor no more:Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I'd think,Saving the money (she warned me), and letting the other men drink.And I met M'Cullough in London (I'd turned five 'undred then),And 'tween us we started the Foundry — three forges and twenty men:Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. It paid, and the business grew,For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that was a gold mine too.“Cheaper to build 'em than buy 'em,”Isaid, but M'Cullough he shied,And we wasted a year in talking before we moved to the Clyde.And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of us started fair,Building our engines like houses and staying the boilers square.But M'Cullough 'e wanted cabins with marble and maple and all,And Brussels an' Utrecht velvet, and baths and a Social Hall,And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the frames too light,But M'Cullough he died in the Sixties, and — Well, I'm dying to-night. . . .I knew —Iknew what was coming, when we bid on theByfleet's keel —They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel!Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid,When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade!And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,“You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!”They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side;He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died.I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print;And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a hint.(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what the drawings meant,And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me sixty per cent —Sixty per centwithfailures, and more than twice we could do,And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all for you!I thought — it doesn't matter — you seemed to favour your ma,But you're nearer forty than thirty, and I know the kind you are.Harrer an' Trinity College! I ought to ha' sent you to sea —But I stood you an education, an' what have you done for me?The things I knew was proper you wouldn't thank me to give,And the things I knew was rotten you said was the way to live.For you muddled with books and pictures, an' china an' etchin's an' fans,And your rooms at college was beastly — more like a whore's than a man's —Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone,An' she gave you your social nonsense; but where's that kid o' your own?I've seen your carriages blocking the half o' the Cromwell Road,But never the doctor's brougham to help the missus unload.(So there isn't even a grandchild, an' the Gloster family's done.)Not like your mother, she isn't.Shecarried her freight each run.But they died, the pore little beggars! At sea she had 'em — they died.Only you, an' you stood it; you haven't stood much beside.Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier's whelpNosing for scraps in the galley. No help — my son was no help!So he gets three 'undred thousand, in trust and the interest paid.I wouldn't give it you, Dickie — you see, I made it in trade.You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no child,It all comes back to the business. Gad, won't your wife be wild!'Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up to 'er eye:“Daddy! dear daddy's dyin'!” and doing her best to cry.Grateful? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep her away from here.Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, women are queer. . . .There's women will say I've married a second time.Not quite! But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers'll fight.She was the best o' the boiling — you'll meet her before it ends;I'm in for a row with the mother — I'll leave you settle my friends:For a man he must go with a woman, which women don't understand —Or the sort that say they can see it they aren't the marrying brand.But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still —I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurting the will.Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you,If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do.They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can;And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?)There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough tried —Marbles and mausoleums — but I call that sinful pride.There's some ship bodies for burial — we've carried 'em, soldered and packed;Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody calledthemcracked.But me — I've too much money, and people might. . . . All my fault:It come o' hoping for grandsons and buying that Wokin' vault.I'm sick o' the 'ole dam' business; I'm going back where I came.Dick, you're the son o' my body, and you'll take charge o' the same!I want to lie by your mother, ten thousand mile away,And they'll want to send me to Woking; and that's where you'll earn your pay.I've thought it out on the quiet, the same as it ought to be done —Quiet, and decent, and proper — an' here's your orders, my son.You know the Line? You don't, though. You write to the Board, and tellYour father's death has upset you an' you're goin' to cruise for a spell,An' you'd like theMary Gloster— I've held her ready for this —They'll put her in working order and you'll take her out as she is.Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and put her aside(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies!) — the boat where your mother died,By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank,We dropped her — I think I told you — and I pricked it off where she sank —['Tiny she looked on the grating — that oily, treacly sea —]'Hundred and eighteen East, remember, and South just three.Easy bearings to carry — three South — three to the dot;But I gave M'Andrew a copy in case of dying — or not.And so you'll write to M'Andrew, he's Chief of the Maori Line;They'll give him leave, if you ask 'em and say it's business o' mine.I built three boats for the Maoris, an' very well pleased they were,An' I've known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew me — and her.After the first stroke warned me I sent him the money to keepAgainst the time you'd claim it, committin' your dad to the deep;For you are the son o' my body, and Mac was my oldest friend,I've never asked 'im to dinner, but he'll see it out to the end.Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar, I've heard he's prayed for my soul,But he couldn't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve before he stole!He'll take theMaryin ballast — you'll find her a lively ship;And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on 'is wedding-trip,Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three port-holes wide,The kick o' the screw beneath him and the round blue seas outside!Sir Anthony Gloster's carriage — our 'ouse-flag flyin' free —Ten thousand men on the pay-roll and forty freighters at sea!He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleetin' show,And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom the same as he ought to go —By the heel of the Paternosters — there isn't a chance to mistake —And Mac'll pay you the money as soon as the bubbles break!Five thousand for six weeks' cruising, the staunchest freighter afloat,And Mac he'll give you your bonus the minute I'm out o' the boat!He'll take you round to Macassar, and you'll come back alone;He knows what I want o' theMary. . . . I'll do what I please with my own.Your mother 'ud call it wasteful, but I've seven-and-thirty more;I'll come in my private carriage and bid it wait at the door. . . .For my son 'e was never a credit: 'e muddled with books and art,And 'e lived on Sir Anthony's money and 'e broke Sir Anthony's heart.There isn't even a grandchild, and the Gloster family's done —The only one you left me, O mother, the only one!Harrer and Trinity College — me slavin' early an' late —An' he thinks I'm dying crazy, and you're in Macassar Strait!Flesh o' my flesh, my dearie, for ever an' ever amen,That first stroke come for a warning; I ought to ha' gone to you then,But — cheap repairs for a cheap 'un — the doctors said I'd do:Mary, why didn'tyouwarn me? I've allus heeded to you,Excep' — I know — about women; but you are a spirit now;An', wife, they was only women, and I was a man. That's how.An' a man 'e must go with a woman, as you could not understand;But I never talked 'em secrets. I paid 'em out o' hand.Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies! Now what's five thousand to me,For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven where I would be?Ibelieve in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible plain,But I wouldn't trust 'em at Wokin'; we're safer at sea again.For the heart it shall go with the treasure — go down to the sea in ships.I'm sick of the hired women — I'll kiss my girl on her lips!I'll be content with my fountain, I'll drink from my own well,And the wife of my youth shall charm me — an' the rest can go to Hell!(Dickie,hewill, that's certain.) I'll lie in our standin'-bed,An' Mac'll take her in ballast — an' she trims best by the head. . . .Down by the head an' sinkin', her fires are drawn and cold,And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of the empty hold —Churning an' choking and chuckling, quiet and scummy and dark —Full to her lower hatches and risin' steady. Hark!That was the after-bulkhead. . . . She's flooded from stem to stern. . . .Never seen death yet, Dickie? . . . Well, now is your time to learn!
Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all,The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them goodFor such as cannot use one bed too long,But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done,An' go observin' matters till they die.What do it matter where or 'ow we die,So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all —The different ways that different things are done,An' men an' women lovin' in this world —Takin' our chances as they come along,An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?In cash or credit — no, it aren't no good;You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,Unless you lived your life but one day long,Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,An' never bothered what you might ha' done.But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done?I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,In various situations round the world —For 'im that doth not work must surely die;But that's no reason man should labour all'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long.Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,For something in my 'ead upset me all,Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die,An' met my mate — the wind that tramps the world!It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,Which you can read and care for just so long,But presently you feel that you will dieUnless you get the page you're readin' done,An' turn another — likely not so good;But what you're after is to turn 'em all.Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done —Excep' when awful long — I've found it good.So write, before I die, “'E liked it all!”
When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;An' what he thought 'e might require,'E went an' took — the same as me!The market-girls an' fishermen,The shepherds an' the sailors, too,They 'eard old songs turn up again,But kep' it quiet — same as you!They knew 'e stole; 'e knew they knowed.They didn't tell, nor make a fuss,But winked at 'Omer down the road,An' 'e winked back — the same as us!
I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at,A-layin' on to the sergeant I don't know a gun from a bat;My shirt's doin' duty for jacket, my sock's stickin' out o' my boots,An' I'm learnin' the damned old goose-step along o' the new recruits!Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again.Don't look so 'ard, for I 'aven't no card,I'm back to the Army again!I done my six years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: “Good-day —You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back-pay;An' fourpence a day for baccy — an' bloomin' gen'rous, too;An' now you can make your fortune — the same as your orf'cers do.”Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again;'Ow did I learn to do right-about turn?I'm back to the Army again!A man o' four-an'-twenty that 'asn't learned of a trade —Beside “Reserve” agin' him — 'e'd better be never made.I tried my luck for a quarter, an' that was enough for me,An' I thought of 'Er Majesty's barricks, an' I thought I'd go an' see.Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again;'Tisn't my fault if I dress when I 'alt —I'm back to the Army again!The sergeant arst no questions, but 'e winked the other eye,'E sez to me, “'Shun!” an' I shunted, the same as in days gone by;For 'e saw the set o' my shoulders, an' I couldn't 'elp 'oldin' straightWhen me an' the other rookies come under the barrick-gate.Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again;'Oo would ha' thought I could carry an' port?I'm back to the Army again!I took my bath, an' I wallered — for, Gawd, I needed it so!I smelt the smell o' the barricks, I 'eard the bugles go.I 'eard the feet on the gravel — the feet o' the men what drill —An' I sez to my flutterin' 'eart-strings, I sez to 'em, “Peace, be still!”Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again;'Oo said I knew when theJumnerwas due?I'm back to the Army again!I carried my slops to the tailor; I sez to 'im, “None o' your lip!You tight 'em over the shoulders, an' loose 'em over the 'ip,For the set o' the tunic's 'orrid.” An' 'e sez to me, “Strike me dead,But I thought you was used to the business!” an' so 'e done what I said.Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again.Rather too free with my fancies? Wot — me?I'm back to the Army again!Next week I'll 'ave 'em fitted; I'll buy me a swagger-cane;They'll let me free o' the barricks to walk on the Hoe againIn the name o' William Parsons, that used to be Edward Clay,An' — any pore beggar that wants it can draw my fourpence a day!Back to the Army again, sergeant,Back to the Army again:Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant,Out o' the cold an' the rain.'Oo's there?A man that's too good to be lost you,A man that is 'andled an' made —A man that will pay what 'e cost youIn learnin' the others their trade — parade!You're droppin' the pick o' the ArmyBecause you don't 'elp 'em remain,But drives 'em to cheat to get out o' the streetAn' back to the Army again!