Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, unhandily: "Our thumbs are rough and tarred, And the tune is something hard May we lift a Deep-sea Chantey such as seamen use at sea?” Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adventurersFettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity: "Ho, we revel in our chains O'er the sorrow that was Spain's; Heave or sink it, leave or drink it, we were masters of the sea!" Up spake the soul of a gray Gothavn 'speckshioner(He that led the flinching in the fleets of fair Dundee): "Oh, the ice-blink white and near, And the bowhead breaching clear! Will Ye whelm them all for wantonness that wallow in the sea?" Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, Crying: "Under Heaven, here is neither lead nor lee! Must we sing for evermore On the windless, glassy floor? Take back your golden fiddles and we'll beat to open sea!" Then stooped the Lord, and He called the good sea up to Him, And 'stablished his borders unto all eternity, For to praise the Lord by measure, They may enter into galleons and serve Him on the sea. Sun, wind, and cloud shall fail not from the face of it, Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying free; And the ships shall go abroad To the Glory of the Lord Who heard the silly sailor-folk and gave them back their sea! THE MERCHANTMEN KING SOLOMON drew merchantmen, For peacocks, apes, and ivory, Which Hiram rafted down, But we be only sailormen That use in London Town. Coastwise-cross-seas―round the world and back again Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits Plain-sail-storm-sail—lay your board and tack again And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots! We bring no store of ingots, Of spice or precious stones, In flame beneath the tropics, And some we got by purchase, And light the rolling homeward-bound By sport of bitter weather We're walty, strained, and scarred Our galley's in the Baltic, And our boom's in Mossel Bay! We've floundered off the Texel, We've slipped from Valparaiso With the Norther at our heels: We've ratched beyond the Crossets Beyond all outer charting We sailed where none have sailed, On islands none have hailed; Strange consorts rode beside us The witch-fire climbed our channels, We've heard the Midnight Leadsman The sleet-cloud drave her hosts, When, manned by more than signed with us, We passed the Isle o' Ghosts! And north, amid the hummocks, We met the silent shallop That frighted whalers know; |