The Turnpike Sailor 
 
 or 
 Rhymes on the Road
 
 From photo by} 
 
 W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 [Lambert fr l.atnberi, Balh.
 
 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR 
 
 OR 
 
 RHYMES ON THE ROAD 
 
 RECITED BY 
 
 Buccaneers, Privateers, Slavers, and Sailors of 
 all degree 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CLARK ^RUSSELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE "WRECK OP THE GROSVENOR," "THE CONVICT 
 
 SHIP." "MAROONED." "LIFE OF NELSON," "LIFE OF 
 
 LORD COLLINGWOOD," " DAMPIBR," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SKEFFINGTON & SON 
 34, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 
 to |ts yaltitu tb 
 1907
 
 Confente, 
 
 PREFACE - Vii. 
 
 "THE LONDON," PRIVATEER I 
 
 FLETCHER CHRISTIAN'S LAMENT - 8 
 
 ABANDONED - IJ 
 
 THE MARINER'S CREED 19 
 
 THE PILGRIMS 24 
 
 THAT ABRAHAM 29 
 
 IN CHAINS 37 
 
 CAPTAIN TEACH 4O 
 
 FATHER OF THE SKA 45 
 
 THE SAILING SHIP 53 
 
 THE SLAVER 57 
 
 PETER SERRANO 65 
 
 MAROONED 75 
 
 DANCE'S TEA-FIGHT 81 
 
 THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE - 87 
 
 THE PLYMOUTH BUCCANEERS 97
 
 (preface. 
 
 THESE metrical tales are not offered as "poetry." My 
 intention is fulfilled if the reader will courteously imagine 
 that he has halted on the road for a few minutes to listen 
 to a burly fellow, with a wooden leg, his cap in his hand, 
 and clad in a worn old pilot jacket and fearnanght 
 breeches, bawling out one of the following yarns of the 
 sea of other days. The numbers of such a roaring chanter 
 will not be too critically listened to for false quantities 
 and questionable rhymes, though I have endeavoured to 
 make this turnpike Salt as melodious as his deep-sea 
 throat will permit 
 
 W. C. R.
 
 onbon," 
 
 (" The London " was an out-and-out pirate of the Black 
 Flag; but the Songster politely speaks of her as a letter- 
 of-marque.) 
 
 I. 
 
 THE schooner was a privateer known all wheres as "The 
 
 London " ; 
 The merchantman that she pursued was nearly always 
 
 undone. 
 Her crew were ninety fighting sailors led by Captain 
 
 Rokeshill, 
 She was armed with swivels, carronades, and Long Tom on 
 
 the fo'csle. 
 Her masts were tall, her fore yards square, her sails cut to 
 
 a tee, 
 
 She was like a ship of magic foam, a milk-white fantasy. 
 Her captain was a gentleman 
 
 Of goodly quality, 
 Whose noble blood and scutcheon ran 
 
 Through books of heraldry. 
 His eyes were dark, of pensive light, 
 
 Sad as with years of study ; 
 His teeth were like the apple- white 
 When you cut the peel that's ruddy.
 
 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 He was a well-bred gentleman of lion-heart and spirit, 
 Young, handsome, proud and manly with such charms as 
 
 men inherit. 
 
 He had no wife nor family to cause him joy or fear, 
 And such was Captain Rokeshill of " The London," 
 
 privateer. 
 
 II. 
 
 A Convoy home was coming from the Indies of the West. 
 There was not a man-of-war afloat " The London " could not 
 
 best; 
 
 In running or close-haul'd or with a storming wind abeam 
 She flash'd and fled like a flake of foam on a river's 
 
 rushing stream. 
 
 To hover on the Convoy's skirts and watch with tireless eyes ; 
 To cut off some rich lagging craft and make of her a prize : 
 This was the meaning of the course 
 
 We set at the Channel's mouth ; 
 Full West would be our next resource 
 
 When we had sail'd full South. 
 First run your latitude adown, 
 
 The longitude then try ; 
 And so you'll fetch your Port or Town 
 
 Without anxiety. 
 We swept the Channel bows in froth and fled along the 
 
 seaboard, 
 
 We needed not to 'bout ship for a weather or a lee board. 
 The white race spun and spat astern to the sea-line keen 
 
 and clear, 
 
 And our shrouds sang madrigals aboard "The London," 
 privateer.
 
 " THE LONDON," PRIVA TEER. 
 
 III. 
 
 We cut th' Antillean parallel and clapt the helm aweather ; 
 Her keen lip, as her side flash'd, wore the foam-curl of a 
 
 feather. 
 
 Until one morn there fell upon our ship a burnished calm, 
 Which after days of high seas won the fancy like a psalm. 
 The sun, small as the moon, hung like a lemon dim on high 
 And the ocean gleam'd like silk to where it melted in the sky . 
 At each masthead keeps watch a man, 
 
 A spy-glass round his neck ; 
 The tarnish'd distances to scan, 
 
 Eager to hail the deck. 
 The haze hangs like the dusty veils 
 
 Of cobwebs in old rooms, 
 And still the rayless red sun fails 
 
 In the heat through which he looms. 
 Sudden a cry falls from on high : " A sail ! broad on the 
 
 bow! 
 One two three tour ! I count no more five six ! I 
 
 see 'em now ! " 
 They seem to ooze like shapes of cloud from the dimness 
 
 whence they steer 
 
 "Seven eight nine ten! Huzza, my men, for "The 
 London," privateer!" 
 
 IV. 
 
 Said the Captain " They're the Convoy, lads, of that we need 
 
 not doubt ; 
 
 A liner and three frigates and one brig I can make out. 
 The wind that they are bringing comes ahead of them with 
 
 ease,
 
 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Stand by to trim the canvas when we catch that sparkling 
 
 breeze. 
 There's nothing there to fright us whilst we keep well out of 
 
 range : 
 But our conduct must be order 'd so they find us nothing 
 
 strange." 
 And as he spoke the fiery air 
 
 Gush'd full, and down she lay ; 
 She hung like something breathless there, 
 
 Then, hissing, swept away. 
 How gracious was her gift of speed ! 
 
 What King's ship could attach her ! 
 She was swifter than the Arabian steed, 
 
 No albatross could match her. 
 A gun ! What's that ? A cry to halt ? A halt would mean a 
 
 halter ! 
 No, Madam Frigate, spare your shot : not you shall make us 
 
 falter. 
 Haul out, then, will ye, after us ? Tut ! Hear'st not thou 
 
 our jeer ? 
 Heed well your Convoy one we want for " The London," 
 
 privateer. 
 
 V. 
 
 With the shadow of the" evening came a curl of silver moon ; 
 The frigate did not chase us long, in truth she dropped us 
 
 soon. 
 
 As idle to pursue o'er fields the shadow of a cloud. 
 She sent a Parthian shot and then rejoined the leeward 
 
 crowd. 
 
 When well below the sea-line, but still holding them in sight, 
 We piped to grog and entered on the duties of the night.
 
 "THE LONDON," PRIVATEER. 
 
 In the morning watch, about one bell, 
 
 The wind began to roar : 
 14 1 fear this weather smells of hell 
 
 To those who arn't ashore. 
 It will scatter sure the whole Convoy," 
 
 Said our Captain without glee, 
 " And I'll heartily wish the King's ships joy 
 
 If they'll leave one ship for me." 
 
 It blew a hurricane that day, and nothing could be done, 
 But house the topmasts, hand all sail, secure the guns and run. 
 God knows how many leagues we sped in sober honest fear ; 
 Twas like all hands had foundered in "The London," 
 pnvateer. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What next befell I now must tell 'tis curious, choice, and 
 
 odd: 
 
 And proves that even privateers may put some trust in God. 
 The clouds broke loose, the blue sky shone, as lakes do on 
 
 the land ; 
 
 The lumpish waters met in shocks, being under no command. 
 The smell of weed was coarse like dressing fish in a caboose. 
 The leaden swell looked muddy as though thickened from 
 
 the ooze. 
 
 When broad upon the larboard beam, about a mile in span, 
 A great tall ship lay wallowing, a big West Indiaman. 
 Her mizzen-mast was o'er the side, 
 
 Gone were her long jibbooms ; 
 The storm had stript her of all pride, 
 
 Almost a wreck she looms. 
 " She's of the Convoy left behind ! " 
 
 Cried Captain Rokeshill : " Speak her ! "
 
 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 "Ho, ship ahoy !" "She's dumb and blind ! 
 
 Quick, ere a frigate seek her ! " 
 We put our helm to starboard and the seamen went to 
 
 quarters, 
 
 All ready for a nimble run in case a frigate sought us ; 
 When lo ! that half-wrecked Indiaman, as slowly we drew 
 
 near, 
 Let fly, by God ! a broadside at " The London," privateer ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 The drench killed five and wounded seven no very hand- 
 some blunder 
 
 To drive us mad ! but stop a bit ! Now let our cannon 
 thunder ! 
 
 Ply, ply 'em fierce, the shot'll pierce whilst close beside we 
 round to ! 
 
 'Way, boarders ! Mizzen chains my chance ! we'll find out 
 where she's bound to ! 
 
 What ! Gone the men from every gun ? Her lesson have 
 we taught her ? 
 
 "We surrender!" bawls her Captain, "and for God's sake 
 give us quarter ! " 
 
 She was from Kingston, to our joy, 
 The richest of the sailers 
 
 Which formed the valuable Convoy 
 Whose frigate fail'd to hail us. 
 
 Her master was part-owner too, 
 And now a broken man, 
 
 His name was Captain Martin Drew 
 And his daughter was called Ann. 
 
 A delicate bloom enriched her cheeks, in her eyes the love- 
 stars glowed,
 
 ' THE LONDON," PRIVATEER. 
 
 She had cherry lips and nut brown hair dressed daintily d la 
 
 mode; 
 She view'd our Captain with a smile, and we guessed the 
 
 pretty dear 
 Was as much as her father's ship a prize to "The London," 
 
 privateer. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Our Captain sweetly smiles on Ann, and says, " I'm yours 
 
 for life : 
 
 " I'll give your father back his ship if you will be my wife." 
 \Vhereat she drops a curtsey and with joy her fine eyes fill : 
 And stretching forth her little hand she softly says, " I will." 
 Now was not here a victory ? and was not here a prize ? 
 What gold could buy her tender love ? what jewels match her 
 
 eyes? 
 And then we stopp'd what we'd begun ; 
 
 And Captain Drew, shipmaster, 
 For life made this young couple one 
 
 By acting as ship's pastor. 
 What said our crew who'd lost their mates, 
 
 When they regained their foc'sle ? 
 " He'll find more ships with richer freights, 
 
 Our Captain still is RokeshilL" 
 So honour be the mariners' who stand by those who head 
 
 them! 
 Who'll fight for them, who'll die for them, who'll starve for 
 
 them, and wed them ! 
 Such noble souls we have at sea as sure these rhymes make 
 
 clear, 
 And nobler none's than the fighting sons of " The London," 
 
 privateer.
 
 " AT this question he seemed confused, and answered with 
 much emotion, ' That, Captain Bligh, that is the thing ; I 
 am in hell I am in hell !"' " Mutiny of ' H.M.S. 
 Bounty.' " 
 
 I. 
 
 IN his cabin, sunk in sullen thought, lay Mr. William Bligh, 
 The Lieutenant who was skipper of the " Bounty " man-of- 
 war. 
 
 His tace was plump and girlish, and he had a vicious eye, 
 And a heart no tender thought could melt nor God's own 
 
 power awe. 
 
 (O gentlemen of Britain, think of us beyond the sea ! 
 And likewise all you ladies who enslave the men who're free.) 
 The sternest of us cannot speak of England without tears. 
 No sailors were more dutiful, 
 Our love of home was beautiful, 
 
 'Twas Bligh o' the " Bounty " man-ot-war who made us 
 mutineers. 
 
 II. 
 
 I see him now, more white than pink : his hair hung in a tye : 
 A tarnish'd cocked-hat sat athwart ; his stout shanks sank 
 in shoes.
 
 FLETCHER CHRISTIANAS LAMENT. 9 
 
 His cold keen eyes turned round about the smallest fault to 
 spy. 
 
 The object of his being was his sailors to abuse. 
 (O gentlemen !) for trifles, sirs, aloft, alow he'd stare, 
 (O ladies, kind !) his insolence no sailor man could bear ; 
 He traded on our discipline, trucked basely in our fears 
 
 At heart we were a loyal crew, 
 
 From yard-arm earring down to clew 
 'Twas bloody-minded girlish Bligh who made us mutineers. 
 
 III. 
 
 We had visited the islands, knew the glory of the land, 
 The groves of palms, the waterfalls, the fire-clothed 
 
 mountain-dome ; 
 The cocoa-trees and sweet roots, the canoes by warriors 
 
 manned, 
 The coral beach and laughing Venus beckoning in the 
 
 foam. 
 But (gentlemen of Britain), do you think we wronged our 
 
 fame 
 
 (O ladies, kind), do you suppose we madly sought our shame 
 For the love of dusky women who could never be our dears ? 
 (Tho' tis rapture when they greet ye 
 On the shores ot Otaheite.) 
 
 'Twas that heartless, cold, no-sailor Bligh who made us 
 mutineers. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Who uses ill the sailor is no sailor, take you heed ! 
 
 A loyal heart's the noble.st gem in Britain's brilliant crown. 
 We had foughten for our country, and for her again would 
 bleed.
 
 io THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 We'd have circled twenty times the globe to add to her 
 
 renown. 
 
 Why (gentlemen of Britain) did we send that Bligh adrift, 
 (O ladies,) with our shipmates without pity, without shrift ? 
 Did we spurn the service of the King to rove as privateers ? 
 
 We were human, like our fellows, 
 
 And for Bligh despised the gallows ; 
 He forced our hand to seize the ship and end as mutineers. 
 
 V. 
 
 'Twas April, seventeen eighty-one, and just before the dawn ; 
 
 And Captain Bligh was sleeping in his cabin all alone, 
 Having kept a watch below in scowling thought, as I have 
 
 drawn 
 
 In the opening of this ditty, writ to make our story known ; 
 When (gentlemen of Britain) Fletcher Christian, Master's 
 
 mate, 
 And (ladies, kind) three other sailors, filled with wrath and 
 
 hate, 
 
 Burst in upon Lieutenant Bligh, who up his figure rears ; 
 But we flung the tyrant on the deck, 
 And swore we'd break his scoundrel neck, 
 If he durst oppose the seamen he'd transform'd to mutineers. 
 
 VI. 
 
 On this he holloas hoarsely, and for aid begins to yelp ; 
 
 We bound his hands behind his back, and ran him through 
 
 the door. 
 His officers were locked away, and no man else would help 
 
 This bully of a crew as good as any crew of yore.
 
 FLETCHER CHRISTIAN'S LAMENT. n 
 
 Then (gentlemen), this girl-faced man about our duty stutters, 
 And (ladies, kind) against our act a pitiful protest sputters. 
 We told him to belay his jaw, and batten down his fears. 
 
 Our justice with him would not palter, 
 
 Twas either boat or yard-arm halter ! 
 For he it was, the plump-faced Bligh, who made us mutineers. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The ocean stream 'd in splendour to the brilliant far-off line : 
 
 It was a spacious scene of sea to frame a little boat 
 The topsail lies aback, and aft the large glazed portholes 
 
 shine 
 
 Down on the blue, like castle windows on a flooded moat. 
 (O gentlemen !) Says Bligh, " What have I done that this 
 
 should be ! " 
 (O ladies !) " No more words ! " I cried. " Choke down your 
 
 dastard plea ! 
 Avast with you, you tyrant, with your threats and odious 
 
 sneers, 
 
 /am in hell ! that is the thing 1 
 I am in hell ! that is the sting ! 
 Sent there by you, you cruel fiend, who made us mutineers ! " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Huzza, for Otaheite 1 " was the cry we sailors rais'd, 
 When we sent the boat adrift with Bligh and eighteen 
 
 other men. 
 
 They went away, the most of them, white, staring, and half- 
 dazed, 
 With narrow store of viitles : we should never meet again.
 
 12 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 (O gentlemen !) 'Twas duty, and a manly spirit bid us : 
 
 (O ladies !) did we sin t' avenge the cruel wrongs he did us ? 
 
 Alone in our far exile we discourse of home with tears. 
 
 Then treat your tars as sailors, 
 
 Let your captains never fail us, 
 And hearts of oak you'll find us, and not " Bounty " mutineers.
 
 THE derelict, the water-logged, forsaken ship at sea, 
 
 Floats symbol-wise; the ocean's desolation is her own. 
 No spirit of beauty visits her, I care not in what key, 
 But the abandoned ship subdues the strain to her own 
 
 lamenting tone. 
 
 Is she silvered by the moonlight, is she gilded by the sun, 
 Doth she roll, touched into amber by the hectic of 
 
 the west? 
 
 Doth she shape herself in ivory when flames the Orient gun ? 
 Is she phantom-like in starlight when by midnight winds 
 
 caressed? 
 Oh grand's the line of battle ship, the frigate swells in 
 
 white, 
 
 The Indiaman is lofty and the schooner's sweetly clad; 
 The Thames barge stems with triumph when in painted 
 
 cloth bedight; 
 
 But even when set in Beauty's foil, the abandoned ship 
 is >.t'l. 
 
 The deck was hail'd one morning watch ; our ship was a 
 
 South Spainer; 
 Old Jack bawls down, "There's something black two 
 
 points afore the beam." 
 The day had broken bright and calm, and soon we saw 
 
 her plainer,
 
 I 4 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 A black, soaked, wallowing lumpish hulk, fast sinking, 
 
 did she seem. 
 We bore right down upon the wreck, and then we backed 
 
 our tor'sail ; 
 Our Captain works his spy-glass with the hope to do 
 
 some good. 
 She'd not a rag of cloth on her save just a strip ot 
 
 foresail, 
 Which signalled like a live man's weft* from the only 
 
 mast that stood. 
 Her shrouds snaked out in a gliding way from the channels 
 
 to the raffle 
 
 That rose and fell alongside in an hideous sea-ragout : 
 To describe her would an artist (let alone a sailor) baffle. 
 You thought of a lump of buffalo hump in a foc'sle Indian 
 stew. 
 
 A wolf-like dog was howling on the rolling round-house top 
 A wail for help more sorrowful the human throat ne'er 
 
 swelled ; 
 
 Sometimes he'd lift his nose as asking water, yea, one drop, 
 Then barked he in a husky note which human anguish 
 
 held. 
 "There's nothing else alive that I can see," says Captain 
 
 Tong; 
 " But take the boat and search her, for she's bound to tell 
 
 some tale. 
 
 She's drown'd ; but overhaul what's dry, then bring that dog 
 along : 
 
 * A signal of distress. A flag tied in the middle, like a gamp 
 umbrella, and hoisted.
 
 ABANDONED. 13 
 
 Did you ever hear dog make that cry? It's like a 
 
 woman's wail" 
 The boat was launch'd, the mate and three go in her to the 
 
 wreck; 
 The dog's howl ceased, the hulk lies still for help that 
 
 swept thing pines ; 
 The mate and two the main-chains gain, and leap upon 
 
 the deck, 
 
 And the dog springs from the round-house top to the 
 round house door and whines. 
 
 And what a whine was his ! You'd swear a woman's scream 
 
 was in it. 
 The mate first sought for water, but the dog refused 
 
 a sip; 
 It whined again a fierce appeal Mate Cock says in a 
 
 minute, 
 
 *'I understand," and follows to the cabin of the ship. 
 The round-house formed a cabin, and two bedrooms 
 
 flanked the door; 
 The dog runs to the larboard one ; what meets the mate 
 
 his eyes? 
 The bodies of a woman and a baby on the floor; 
 
 The dog sniffs at the baby and the baby faintly cries. 
 " Now bear a hand ! this infant take and pass into 
 
 the boat. 
 "The mother's dead as is this ship. Are more alive 
 
 aboard?" 
 "None fore nor aft!" "Well, cheerly now! this hulk can 
 
 scarcely float 
 
 " In with the dog ! off" for our lives ! " was the order 
 Mate Cock roar'd.
 
 16 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 The baby was a little boy of sixteen months about, 
 His eyes were blue, his hair was gold, his flesh as 
 
 white as foam; 
 
 His three teeth gleam'd like almonds in his cherry- 
 coloured pout, 
 And his innocence aboard us made the ship a dream 
 
 of home. 
 
 The dog would never leave his side ; that gaunt wolf- 
 shape (all rib) 
 Would go with the babe when carried, and watch by 
 
 him on deck ; 
 And all night long, with one eye closed, he'd lie beside 
 
 the crib 
 We made for little baby when we brought him from 
 
 the wreck. 
 We dressed him as a sailor, and we called him Beauty 
 
 Tong; 
 Our skipper, an old bach'lor, said the child should be 
 
 his son, 
 
 But as an ocean-orphan to us Jacks did he belong : 
 And we held our rights in baby were the rights of 
 everyone. 
 
 'Twas thus we nursed him turn about, now Captain, Mate, 
 
 or Man : 
 And every sailor took his part in this engaging 
 
 duty. 
 We made him clothes, we made him toys, we did what 
 
 soft hearts can, 
 
 And none but would have died for him for love of 
 little Beauty.
 
 ABANDONED. 17 
 
 What a nosegay is in prison-cell, cold founts in desert sands ; 
 The blackbird's song in a gloomy court, the kiss of 
 
 sleep in pain, 
 The hope in Christ when we mourn our dead, the rain in 
 
 sun-scorched lands, 
 Was that babe to us who worked the ship through the 
 
 waters of South Spain. 
 
 For the sailor-man though of a crew is a lonely man at sea, 
 His watch is lone, he steers alone, his shipmates sleep 
 
 or sew; 
 In his watch on deck he's kept at work and silent all 
 
 must be, 
 
 And 'tis hammock or the choking meal when his watch is 
 piped below. 
 
 So it befell, this child was as a star that lights the night 
 In the dull and wearing labours of our year-long ocean 
 
 strife. 
 
 He shone on our hearts' compass-card so that we read it right 
 To love a child's to love the truth and all God loves in 
 
 life. 
 And yet ! oh, it must happen ! was that dog ot stedfast 
 
 heart 
 God's prophet whilst he kept watch by our little Beauty's 
 
 bed? 
 He whined throughout the hours one night as knowing they 
 
 must part, 
 And in the dawn the Captain looked and found our 
 
 darling dead. 
 
 Then was there grieving in our ship : our little company 
 Had lost their star, their compass-card, their pure and 
 only joy : 
 
 B
 
 1 8 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 The sanctity of death and grief was in that ship at sea. 
 Oh think ! who made us men in heart was but a baby boy ! 
 
 Of sail-cloth, with a round-shot, was our baby's wool-white 
 
 shroud ; 
 
 Each sailor took a toy of his and kept it for his sake, 
 The body at the gangway made the roughest sob aloud ; 
 No flowers had we, but garlands wrought of foam-wreaths 
 
 in our wake. 
 It blew a pleasant breeze, the sails like shells prismatic stand, 
 
 Cool melodies of fountains float on either side the ship. 
 The dog the body watches, scarce a sailor but's unmann'd, 
 And the Captain reads the prayers out with moist eye and 
 
 quivering lip. 
 The white-robed burden glances from the seaman's tilted 
 
 plank, 
 In a breath the dog leaps after it ! " Down helium !'" the 
 
 Captain cries. 
 But the ribb'd shape had not sprang to swim stone-like 
 
 that great heart sank. 
 
 Are men as loyal as was this dog, when friend or sweet- 
 heart dies? 
 
 Oh, be the children dear to us, for they're of heaven above, 
 And let the faithful dog be dear, the friend of every one. 
 For the children bring from God their home the pledge of 
 
 endless love, 
 
 And the dog will live and die with you when human love 
 is done.
 
 (mariner* e 
 
 " And darkness was upon the face of the deep ; and the 
 Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." 
 
 THE Ocean was by God's command. 
 
 The Ocean was before the Land, 
 
 Before the Land sprang into being, 
 
 Mountain-crowned and valley-deep : 
 
 Beautiful with lakes and meadows, 
 
 Falling foam on golden shore ; 
 
 Noble with the towering forest 
 
 And the shouting cataract's leap, 
 
 Heaven-like in the summer sunset, 
 
 Hell-like in the tempest's roar. 
 
 The throne of Night was on the sea, 
 
 Night's central soul and voice was she, 
 
 Till, phantom-wise, that soul took form; 
 
 Then spake the voice in calm and storm. 
 
 With Visions fashioned or begun 
 
 The Sea was clothed ere yet there was the Sun. 
 
 My princely gallants, give me heed ! 
 And hearken to a Sailor's Creed.
 
 to THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 What think ye of yon theatre 
 
 Of walls and roof and groundlings' pit ? 
 
 'Tis but a dusty, hollow house, 
 
 Chill as a galleon's freightless hold. 
 
 But how's it when the curtain's raised, 
 
 The musick play'd, the candles lit, 
 
 When the players sing or act or dance, 
 
 And, festive, ape the Age's mould ? 
 
 What magic do those players order? 
 
 It warbles in the soft recorder; 
 
 Shines in the actress' eloquent eyes, 
 
 Thrills in the swain's impassioned sighs, 
 
 Gives life to all we see and feel, 
 
 And makes the Visions of the mind's eye real. 
 
 And would'st thou then the Ocean strip 
 
 Of mermaid and of phantom-ship ? 
 
 The homage of the mighty Deep 
 
 Unto the mightier lunar charm? 
 
 The tide's discourse, St. Elmo's fire, 
 
 The arts by which the wind's subdued? 
 
 Would'st force a bosom, zoned by heaven, 
 
 That storms in tempest, smiles in calm, 
 
 To heave, to sleep an inland lake ! 
 
 In barren prose of solitude? 
 
 O tell me not that play is ended ! 
 
 O still be mine the Vision splendid ! 
 
 The gleams, the glooms, the melodies, 
 
 Dwell in my spirit's ears and eyes. 
 
 My memories, moods and love they feed. 
 
 All hail, thou Soul, thou mother of my Creed !
 
 THE MARINERS CREED. 21 
 
 As the bosom's rise and fall are breath, 
 
 What mean the Tides but life and death? 
 
 The sobbing Ebb streams darkling o'er 
 
 The shingle and the snake-like weed : 
 
 And with it goes the dead man's soul 
 
 To the unknown Sea beyond the sun; 
 
 The Flood makes with its rhythmic pulse 
 
 And glad voice of a Spirit freed, 
 
 And bears to the mother's breast the babe 
 
 Which from the Unknown Sea it won. 
 
 An hollow-theatre's silent stage 
 
 Is the Ocean in a knowing age ! 
 
 No life ere life began is there, 
 
 Her eyes are blank, her bosom bare: 
 
 What is she if not wind and foam ? 
 
 Her soul hath fled, her spirits have no home. 
 
 Behold the Ocean's Queen on high : 
 She floods the stars and fills the sky. 
 A white cloud wanly veils her face 
 In envy of her loving beam, 
 And the Ocean who's her sovereign lord, 
 Frowns to behold her cloud-empearled : 
 Upon his breast her picture shines, 
 Upon this symbol doth she dream, 
 And as she moves, with lifted heart 
 He goes with her around the world. 
 Blind eyes have they who will not see : 
 The hidden truth's the truth to me, 
 It's in the still, small voice in things; 
 It's in the song the blackbird sings ;
 
 22 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 It's in the violet's perfumed hue : 
 
 It is the soul that makes her semblance true. 
 
 Shall not the sea her Musick keep? 
 
 Ye've slain the minstrels of the deep. 
 
 How chants the billow, sings the surge? 
 
 What is the foaming valley's sound? 
 
 What lilt is in the lipping tide? 
 
 Declare what says the headlong breaker ! 
 
 Whilst she who gave them melodies 
 
 Lies white in her pavilion, drown'd ! 
 
 Sweet mermaid of the bright breasts dead ! 
 
 Why did the mariner forsake her? 
 
 The ripple warbled in her throat, 
 
 The breaker timed the harp she smote : 
 
 Th' Andean surge snatched harmony 
 
 From his lone Virgin of the Sea. 
 
 But now, until the gale be done 
 
 The Ocean hoarsely bellows at the Sun. 
 
 In the unseen, interpreted 
 
 By what is seen, the truth is read. 
 
 And what is it to ye or me 
 
 That instinct governs fish or beast? 
 
 Seek ye the hidden spirit in them 
 
 And by construction truth detect. 
 
 Knowest thou not that death is near 
 
 When gleams the shark in the white wake's yeast? 
 
 Heed'st thou never the spell-woven knot 
 
 That makes the gale when the ship is wreck'd? 
 
 My heart is still at her commands 
 
 Who sings to me on golden sands.
 
 THE MARINER'S CREED. 23 
 
 Mine ears shall hear the catspaw purr 
 
 To the whistle of the mariner. 
 
 My soul the Sea shall greatly dare 
 
 To view as when the Night alone was there.
 
 "THE MAYFLOWER," 1620-1. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE Lord our God is Monarch of the mighty Universe ; 
 The tryants of men's conscience doth He visit with His curse. 
 His law unto His children's hearts is, " Be My worship thine." 
 But the despot of the soul cries, " Nay ! be the Lord God's 
 
 worship mine." 
 We wish'd to pray to God at home ; the tyrants still cried, 
 
 " Stand ! 
 Ye shall not worship as ye will, nor shall ye leave the 
 
 land." 
 
 II. 
 
 By stratagem (full futile oft) the narrow seas we crossed : 
 We gain'd the Lord in our own way, but all things else we 
 
 lost. 
 
 A broken, sighing company ot men and wives we were ; 
 But God Who loves the upright heart took on Him all our 
 
 care. 
 Come, sing to God the Merciful, Whose eye is on men's 
 
 sorrow ! 
 If dark and dreary be to-day, He clothes with light the 
 
 morrow !
 
 THE PILGRIMS. 25 
 
 III. 
 
 From Amsterdam to Leyden town we march'd in penury ; 
 Our dream was of Virginia, beyond the Atlantic sea. 
 Until at last by sturdy toil bless'd by our Lord's sweet power, 
 We purchased two brave little ships, the "Speedwell" and 
 
 44 Mayflower." 
 In these we met adventures which did breed us grief in 
 
 plenty; 
 And then from old Southampton sail'd in August, sixteen 
 
 twenty. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We were bound to fair Virginia, and in the " Mayflower " 
 
 went 
 
 One hundred and two passengers all in one small ship pent. 
 Besides the Pilgrims were the crew and stores and ordnance 
 
 weighty, 
 
 The ship but measured over-all one hundred tons and eighty. 
 Among us was good Master Sowle, and Bradford and Myles 
 
 Standish, 
 And Brewster, Winslow, Fuller, Priest and names which fame 
 
 shall brandish. 
 Our Pilot was call'd Master Clark, and Coppin was our 
 
 gunner, 
 And let me Mary Chilton mind, and the godly heart that 
 
 won her. 
 
 V. 
 
 When we had sail'd a hundred leagues from where old 
 
 England ends, 
 
 There falls a holy afternoon upon the Pilgrim friends. 
 The sun hangs red and glorious above the ocean line, 
 God's beauty and God's majesty around about us shine.
 
 26 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 'Twas Master Brewster sang a hymn in which we all took 
 
 part, 
 The solemn waters timed our praise with the long throbs of 
 
 their heart. 
 
 How beautiful it is to hear upon the placid sea 
 A congregation's sweet-breasts sing in sacred harmony ! 
 The white sails catch the swelling notes as though they, too, 
 
 adored ; 
 The music echoes in their caves and floats unto the Lord. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Scarce had the cadence of our psalm ceased in our topmost 
 
 sail, 
 
 When, through the crimson of the eve, we heard the "Speed- 
 well " hail. 
 " Ho, Master Jones, my helm must shift a sudden port to 
 
 seek." 
 "What's wrong with Master Reynolds' ship?" "The 
 
 ' Speedwell's ' sprung a leak ! " 
 
 She carried eighteen passengers all Pilgrims, as were we ; 
 We could not leave our well-beloved to founder in the sea. 
 " We'll shift our helm for Plymouth town," our Captain Jones 
 
 bawled out, 
 
 " We're mariners ; I'll stand by you ; so put the ships about." 
 We grieved, some wept ; it was the Lord who willed our cup 
 
 should brim, 
 
 And whilst the sad moon slowly rose we sang another hymn. 
 The night-beam silver'd every face, the ships stemmed pale 
 
 as foam, 
 And with the night-wind filled with psalms, we steered again 
 
 for home.
 
 THE PILGRIMS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And now it was God's heavenly will His mercy should be 
 
 known, 
 
 For after He had led us back He bade us forth alone. 
 The "Speedwell" gave her mission up, and Reynolds say, 
 
 what meant he ? 
 The " Mayflower " put to sea again, September, sixteen 
 
 twenty. 
 
 So all alone upon the deep that girdles us like Time, 
 That onward goes as we go on, in solitude sublime, 
 In darkness oft, in sunshine oft, in hollows of the surge, 
 Or tranced when the evening star bejewels ocean's verge ; 
 We sleep, we weep, we pray, we yearn for the liberty we 
 
 missed, 
 For the home where freedom dwells, and where men worship 
 
 as they list 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Twas pleasant when the dew fell sweet as rain upon the lip, 
 
 To view the picture of the sea made by our little ship. 
 
 The water broke in clouds of gold beneath her rolling sides, 
 
 Her canvas slapped the star-crowned masts, astern the sea- 
 fire slides. 
 
 The children sporting on the deck make music with their 
 laughter ; 
 
 The Elders talk in solemn group about the near Hereafter ; 
 
 The women ply their knitting-pins and whisper one another 
 
 Of ruined homes and ruined lives, of father, mother, brother. 
 
 And now a hymn may swell to heaven, and now the sailors 
 coarsely 
 
 Will bellow back the captain's shout and tune their labour 
 hoarsely.
 
 28 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 IX. 
 
 So dies the day, so speeds the wake, and over all is God ; 
 Virginia's sweets are not for us, we're steering for Cape Cod. 
 But wheresoe'er our haven is, yea, even were it Greenland, 
 Go where we may we there are free : we never were in 
 
 England ! 
 
 Then glory to our God on high, to Him all praise be given ; 
 We lost in Britain's thraldom hell ! to find in freedom 
 
 heaven !
 
 (A LEGEND OF TYNEMOUTH, 1804.) 
 
 IN March in eighteen hundred years and four, 
 
 A shallop shoved from off a South Sea whaler ; 
 And after rowing, put a man ashore, 
 
 An old, damp, weedy man, clothed as a sailor. 
 The coast was Tynemouth, graced by Papish ruins ; 
 
 Beside that sea-boro' runs the River Tyne ; 
 And to the best of Tynemouth's rather few inns, 
 
 Our ancient mariner repaired to dine. 
 He looked so oddly in his cap of fur, 
 
 His shaggy breeches and his shaggier hair, 
 His red-veined eyes and fore-tooth sinister, 
 
 His great ears sagged with hoops, his tinctured stare, 
 That Mr. Porter, landlord of the inn, 
 
 Said " Prythee, your name ? " With sand-pale under-lip 
 He dribbled, " Sir, I was the Guest of Sin, 
 
 I'm now that Abraham who saw the Ship." 
 
 "What wicked ship was she?" the landlord said, 
 "Was she of Shields or Newcassel, this Sinner?" 
 
 " Neither ! No living ship can be more dead. 
 I'm hungry, Master : let me have some dinner." 
 
 A broad beef-steak, with onions, bread and beer, 
 Was served ; he ate the meat, he drained the can,
 
 30 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Whilst Mr. Porter, landlord, gazed in fear, 
 
 Not for his reckoning, but of the Man. 
 The stranger's jaws worked like a starved cow chewing, 
 
 From time to time he'd lift a leathern purse : 
 And whilst he munched he'd stedfastly keep viewing 
 
 What lay within and swallow down a curse. 
 " Oh, what a vice is gold ! " he'd sometimes groan, 
 
 " It makes men devils once it gets a grip. 
 Time was I had a soul I called my own ; 
 
 Now I'm that Abraham who saw the Ship." 
 
 Then draws he from his purse a piece of gold, 
 
 And says " There's more in this than you might reckon ; 
 It's worth seven silver rix-dollars all told, 
 
 And once belonged to Captain Vanderdecken." 
 " Of the ' Flying Dutchman '?" cried out Mr. Porter. 
 
 " Now of what other ? " sneered that old Jack Muck. 
 " A guinea call that piece and keep a quarter. 
 
 Get me tobacco and a pipe to suck." 
 Trembling he sank into an easy chair, 
 
 And shed tobacco-smoke with wrinkled relish ; 
 His clothes, his skin, his mouth, his blood-red stare, 
 
 Made Mr. Porter think him something hellish. 
 First at the Man, then at the gold he'd look, 
 
 That Man now blew a cloud, now took a sip, 
 And muttered, as though reading from a book, 
 
 " I am that Abraham who saw the Ship." 
 
 " But why that Abraham ? " mine host insisted : 
 
 " Dwell not you on that Abraham too much, man ! " 
 
 The other scowled : " What Abraham e'er existed 
 But me, who's lived aboard the ' Flying Dutchman ' ?
 
 THAT ABRAHAM. 31 
 
 Pray sit ye down, O patron of Three Sailors, 
 
 Who dance the day round on your painted sign ; 
 Whistle the drawer, your cellar shall not fail us, 
 
 Clap nose in froth, the reckoning is mine. 
 I am a-weary, and my old heart aches 
 
 With burden of long years : but what of One 
 Who with the gale's wings flies, and thunder shakes 
 
 With shocks of seas whose tongues lick up the sun?" 
 44 What is your age?" quoth Mr. Porter, blandly ; 
 
 44 My age ? " says he, with dribbling under-lip, 
 " Tis eight score years and seven, and " (adds he grandly) 
 
 44 1 am the Abraham who saw the Ship." 
 
 The landlord dropped his pipe : "Eight score and seven /" 
 
 He faintly cried : " Art sure of what you tell ? " 
 44 As sure," says Abraham, " as you of heaven ; 
 
 As sure as I am that I'm bound to hell ! 
 But what of years ? It is not they that make us ; 
 
 It is the body's growth. Time's the clock's tongue. 
 And if decay's forbidden to o'ertake us, 
 
 Then that which cannot die must aye be young. 
 Refill your pipe and charge afresh your mug, 
 
 / carit decay / and when my tale is said 
 You'll own no stranger yarn was ever dug 
 
 From out the ooze which forms old ocean's bed." 
 He mused awhile, his sunk eyes redly glare, 
 
 And now he takes a thought and now a sip, 
 And mutters, whilst his fingers seek his hair, 
 
 44 1 am that Abraham who saw the Ship." 
 
 In sixteen thirty-seven I came to light 
 In Poplar, and when ten was put to sea.
 
 32 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 A ruddy, saucy fellow, bold and tight, 
 
 Was I when young, and all the girls loved me. 
 You would not think so, sir, to see me here ; 
 
 What woman would my face and figure woo ? 
 Yet old men oft by girls are feigned dear, 
 
 And, what is strange, old men believe it, too. 
 At nineteen years of age I went as mate 
 
 Aboard a tall South Seaman for the Cape ; 
 A sailor should be arm'd for every fate ; 
 
 To gorge and end him ports and oceans gape. 
 And arm'd I was, but who could have foretold 
 
 The awful sequel to that South Sea trip ? 
 For I could say when twenty-one years old, 
 
 ' I am that Abraham who saw the Ship.' 
 
 " We touched at Mossel Bay for wood and water. 
 
 When loaded, for the Ship our course we bent ; 
 A sudden rip-surge struck us on the quarter, 
 
 Whelm'd us in foam and down the long boat went. 
 All sank save one who Abraham is named, 
 
 He gain'd the shore upon a piece of tree, 
 Crawled a few fathoms, finding he was lamed, 
 
 And lay as though just cast up by the sea. 
 When life returned the sparkling night was come ; 
 
 He heard the forest-beasts, the breakers' roar ; 
 The sand stretched ghastly and the cliffs stood dumb 
 
 Helpless, alone, he lay upon that shore." 
 The weedy mariner broke off and shivered, 
 
 And seized his chair's arms with convulsive grip, 
 And with a red stare said, in voice that quivered, 
 
 ' I am that Abraham who saw the Ship.'
 
 THAT ABRAHAM. 33 
 
 One forenoon 'neath the tree to which I'd crept, 
 
 I was awakened by a sound of speech ; 
 Five men stood near : I thought that I still slept ; 
 
 Two lounged beside a boat hauled on the beach. 
 What men were they ? I scanned with fearful eye 
 
 Shapes of the dead in living sailors' clothes j 
 Faces of men who, fated not to die, 
 
 Yet still were dead without the dead's repose. 
 They looked swashbucklers in jackboot and brace 
 
 And rump-round breeches and hard weather hat ; 
 But pale as storm-dark foam was every face, 
 
 And no man seemed to see what he looked at. 
 It was not blindness, but the gaze that passed 
 
 Beyond the object that it seemed to skip : 
 1 Oh ! ' cried that old Salt, ' It had come at last ! 
 
 I was that Abraham who saw the Ship.' 
 
 " Yes, sir, by every saint aloft ! she lay 
 
 Within a league, a pallid, poison'd thing : 
 Soft rocking on the swell that brimmed the Bay 
 
 With flash of wet side and sails fluttering. 
 Through several ports small cannon eyed the water ; 
 
 Her tall poop-lanthorn darts a misty sheen ; 
 Some tarnished gilt-scroll decorates each quarter, 
 
 Upon her bulge the weed she lifts is green. 
 I felt the Terror sweat-cold in my brains, 
 
 Gazed at the sailors near me Oh, sir ! such men ! 
 Then said, ' What's yonder ship with three dogvanes ? ' 
 
 One answer'd : ' She iss call ter Flying Tutchman.' 
 They filled the boat and blew away with sail, 
 
 And nimbly did we through the water slip. 
 
 c
 
 34 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 They took with them the Hero of this Tale, 
 That man called Abraham who saw the Ship. 
 
 " Her sides are pock-marked where the sea-worms lurk. 
 
 She makes no foam when down her forefoot sinks. 
 Silent aloft some seamen hang in work, 
 
 The paint is bubbled where it lies and stinks. 
 Some figures move upon her foc'sle-head, 
 
 And some are patching sail-cloth in the waist. 
 'Twas Death in Life, the accursed Life that's dead, 
 
 Dead with blind vision, brain-still, stony-faced. 
 A portly Person stood upon the poop ; 
 
 (Three poops she hath, the topmost is called royal ;) 
 In either ear he wore a golden hoop, 
 
 His white beard hid his breast by coil on coil. 
 His long lean nose rear'd out, his eyes were small, 
 
 His hair hung o'er his ears in ends of whip ; 
 He said in thrilling tones funereal, 
 
 ' Thou art the Abraham who saw the Ship ! ' 
 
 " At me he stared with bush-browed stedfast eyes, 
 
 Dim-silvered by that death which is not rest ; 
 (His face, arched nose and rugged skin of frieze 
 
 Was like an eagle peering from his nest.) 
 Then asks he : ' What are you ? ' and I did say. 
 
 ' And who is King of Britain ? who of Spain ? ' 
 And then he says : ' What is the year and day ? ' 
 
 And when I told him he roars, ' Try again ! ' 
 ' Sulphur consume you ! ' Vanderdecken cried, 
 
 ' From Java sailed I sixteen twenty one : 
 So that for thirty-seven years have I tried 
 
 To fetch old Amsterdam by moon and sun !
 
 THAT ABRAHAM. 33 
 
 I'll have you keel-haul'd if again you lie. 
 
 We Dutchmen love all Britons so to dip ! 
 Lie if you durst ! and look me in the eye, 
 
 You man called Abraham who saw the Ship ! ' " 
 
 " Pray, Abraham," says Mr. Porter, host, 
 
 " What was the year when you the Ship beheld ? " 
 " The year was sixteen fifty seven at most " 
 
 " A century and a half!" the landlord yelled. 
 44 What art thou, wretch ? a mortal or a demon ? " 
 
 Shrieked out mine host with terror in his cry ; 
 " I'm one of Captain Vanderdecken's seamen, 
 
 Who, having serv'd aboard him, cannot die. 
 I'm damned for ever and must live for ever ; 
 
 That is the fate on which all sailors reckon, 
 Who speak or board that Death Ship whose endeavour 
 
 Is the Lord's conquest by fierce Vanderdecken. 
 Nor old nor young am I : for dead men living 
 
 No pendulum wags the cent'ries to let slip : 
 God's Eye above, relentless, unforgiving, 
 
 Dwells on that Abraham who saw the Ship. 
 
 " Ah, me ! " he moaned ; the landlord thought he wept 
 
 Not his were tears, but that which dries up tears. 
 " Within the Dutchman's curse I've waking-slept, 
 
 Alive with vulgar wants and dead in years. 
 O pitiless heart ! that gapeth at my grief, 
 
 Yet shuddereth with the shocks of craven strife, 
 Fearing a man by death denied relief ! 
 
 By life the hopes and joys which make up life 1
 
 36 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Shame on ye ! think of that which I have seen, 
 
 The madden'd ship, the foaming cloud-high surge : 
 The lightning o'er the boltsprit-end, the sheen 
 
 Of hell's glares to the blackmost ocean's verge ; 
 And Vanderdecken kneeling with clenched hand, 
 
 And hideous flout of God upon his lip, 
 These terrors have 7 seen, whilst you're unmanned 
 
 By that poor Abraham who saw the Ship." 
 
 He rose and, fumbling, fits his cap of fur, 
 
 Looks on the clock as one who cannot tell it, 
 Gazed at the reckoning-slate and said, " Good sir, 
 
 What is the score ? I have no art to spell it." 
 " No more you've paid we're quits," said Mr. Porter, 
 
 Thankful to heaven the old Fiend should be leaving. 
 " Your charge was in this gold rix-dollar quarter." 
 
 The old man sighed : his face was long with grieving. 
 " Ah, who can tell how spacious is this earth, 
 
 Save he who hath no friend in life or death : 
 Who knows no human sorrow, faith or mirth, 
 
 Who breathes with lungs uncharged by mortal breath ? 
 I cannot die the globe spreads wide afore." 
 
 He muttered to himself, " What's my next trip ? 
 / cannot die and gain the Silent Shore. 
 
 I'm ever Abraham who saw the Ship."
 
 (The Gibbet on the Sandhills, Deal, 1 784.) 
 
 ALONG the glimmering Sandhills blows 
 
 The salt-damp wind in gusts and moans. 
 The flying moonlight comes and goes ; 
 
 The breakers pour in organ-tones. 
 Within the dusk beyond the beach, 
 
 The billows glance in glow-worm light ; 
 The sheen as far as eye can reach 
 
 Is pale as corpse-lamps in the night. 
 How like a midnight cemet'ry 
 
 Look the dark waters ! in the ray 
 Of every pallid crest you see 
 
 A gravestone in that surge's play. 
 An ocean's sob is in the air, 
 
 Its cold, dark spirit's on the land ; 
 The scud makes wild the sudden stare 
 
 Of moon upon the hollow sand. 
 And in that sob and in that chill, 
 
 And in the moonlight's flashful freak, 
 What is the sound that's never still ? 
 
 It is the gibbet's chains which creak !
 
 38 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 'Tis there ! the moonshine touches it ! 
 
 It dangles twenty-one feet tall ; 
 Those iron links the dead man fit. 
 
 Oh, weather-proofs that funeral pall ! 
 A white clout masks his caged face, 
 
 His clothes not yet have dropped in tatters, 
 Knee breeches and a coat of lace, 
 
 Buckles but of the rest what matters ? 
 Is he more ghastly as he sways 
 
 Full-clothed, than when his bleach'd ribs shriek 
 With keen Nor-'Easters through the days, 
 
 And moonless midnights black and bleak ? 
 That man was once a mother's joy, 
 
 Her heart danced to his baby mirth ; 
 What's that up there ? the ghastliest toy 
 
 Death ever grinned at on this earth ! 
 Sure civilisation must be proved ! 
 
 Some great example must be hit on : 
 What better in a cause beloved 
 
 Than hanging in chains in free-born Britain ? 
 
 That thing was once a mariner 
 
 Who wilfully his vessel lost, 
 And so the man is dangling there, 
 
 Provided for at public cost. 
 A starling's nest will warm his ribs, 
 
 A carrion-crow will clear the clay ; 
 What ail'd him ? he told hideous fibs, 
 
 Insured, then robbed as cast-away. 
 Stand close ! fear not ! he'll heed you nothing, 
 
 The moonshine flying makes him leap !
 
 IN CHAINS. 39 
 
 How queer he looks in all his clothing 
 In airy cage as though asleep ! 
 
 The ocean's moaning frosts the veins, 
 And here, a symbol near the sea 
 
 Behold upon the Sandwich plains, 
 Britannia's Christianity ! 
 
 But who is she that comes this way, 
 Painfully as though life were done ? 
 
 She kneels at the gibbet's foot to pray ! 
 Hats off ! that man there was her son. 
 
 Mother and son ! who durst condemn ? 
 Christ is our Lord who died for them.
 
 I. 
 
 LET'S sing a song of Pyrates ; did you ever hear of Teach ? 
 His cable-strands of plunder, murder, arson, rape, would 
 
 reach 
 From old Mahomet's Bridge of Death where dead men's 
 
 ghosts fall over, 
 To the red-hot Gates where sits Queen Sin, the Dam of Death 
 
 the Rover. 
 Let's sing a song of Pyrates, lads, and be that song of 
 
 Teach, 
 
 The terror of the ocean and the horror of the beach ; 
 The Hero of the Bloody Flag, the plank and pike and 
 
 pistol, 
 Who came from where most Pyrates come, I mean the Port of 
 
 Bristol. 
 
 Snickersnee, boys, snickersnee, 
 Sing this roundabout with me. 
 Masthead the black no-quarter flag with yellow skull and 
 
 bones. 
 
 Queen Sin bends on the bunting 
 When her son, Death, goes a-hunting, 
 And the course the Pyrate always steers is straight for Davy 
 
 Jones.
 
 CAPTAIN TEACH (BLACKBEARD). 41 
 
 II. 
 
 The first ship Teach commanded was a tall stout Guineaman ; 
 He seized her with her freight of cocoa, flour and cinnamon, 
 Then mounting her with forty guns for Blood and Booty 
 
 steer'd 
 To make his flag as hideous as his long, coarse coal-black 
 
 beard. 
 
 A horror was that plaited furze of devil-tinctured hair, 
 More affrighting than a comet streaming fan-tailed through 
 
 the air. 
 It stretched from just below his eyes unto his belt that 
 
 bristled 
 With shocking daggers and small-arms in whose throats 
 
 bullets whistled. 
 Like a Ramalies wig 'twas kinked in curls with ribbons very 
 
 gay, 
 
 No fearfuller sight was ever seen in North America. 
 
 In holsters he slung pistols which were never less than nine ; 
 
 He stuck lighted matches in his hair to make his red eyes 
 
 shine. 
 
 Thus apparel'd you may reckon his biographers wrote well 
 When they swore that Teach, thus lighted, look'd a "Fury 
 
 straight from hell." 
 
 III. 
 
 He fought "The Scarbor* " man-of-war and made her run 
 
 away; 
 
 In every ship he comes across this Pyrate finds a prey. 
 He swept the streets of Charles-Town with wild mobs of 
 
 privateers 
 And seized the stores and fired the homes and lamed the 
 
 place for years.
 
 42 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Then his own crews he turns upon and robs them of their 
 
 treasure 
 Of which the sacking and the torch had yielded them good 
 
 measure. 
 
 Some fifty he maroons and then (so sharp-set is he fang'd) 
 He drowns full fifty by a trick and the others he gets hang'd. 
 No Pyrate ever loved a joke as he of whom I sing ; 
 The nearer 'twas to murder why, the funnier was the thing. 
 He'd wrench two pistols from his belt and fire 'em under 
 
 table ; 
 And his pleasure you could measure by the number he'd 
 
 disable. 
 
 He'd call his crew into the hold and cork 'em under hatch, 
 And (himself being of the number) to a stench-pot put a 
 
 match : 
 " Now, lads, as we're all bound to hell, let's see who'll stand 
 
 it longest." 
 And, Lord ! how proud that demon was whene'er he proved 
 
 the strongest ! 
 There's very much in this bad world to make us Christians 
 
 irate ; 
 But what is there we may compare to Teach the bearded 
 
 Pyrate ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 But the hour of retribution comes to every murderous rover, 
 The pistol, pike or halter ends the story and it's over. 
 What is the law of destiny ? or is law ruled by fate ? 
 Who waits an answer unto this must be content to wait. 
 Fire, murder, plunder, demon-orgie, rose to such an height, 
 If they don't end then Carolina perishes out o' sight.
 
 CAPTAIN TEACH (BLACKBEAKD). 43 
 
 To grace the foreshore with the pyrates ironed, pitched and 
 
 dangling, 
 To court to them those birds o' th' air which are pyrates too 
 
 in mangling, 
 
 Was now Virginia's policy and the Governor ('tis said) 
 Proclaim'd the reward of an hundred pounds for Blackbeard 
 
 Teach's head. 
 For the heads of other captains forty pounds apiece was 
 
 given, 
 The boatswain's was worth fifteen and the common sailor's 
 
 seven. 
 
 V. 
 
 In fair Virginia's River James were anchored for a time 
 Two well-mann'd British battleships known as the " Pearl " 
 
 and " Lime." 
 
 The first-lieutenant of the " Pearl" was Mr. Edward Manyard,* 
 Who never sighted pyrate but away the Rover ran hard. 
 The Governor of Virginia to Lieutenant Manyard said 
 "Will you kindly fill two sloops with men and bring me 
 
 Teach's head ? " 
 They had no great guns ; their small arms were sword, and 
 
 pike and pistol. 
 With these the sloops set sail to fetch the head of Teach of 
 
 Bristol. 
 
 They caught him in an estuary and chased him on the mud ; 
 His people fought like demons : all was thunder, yells and 
 
 blood. 
 
 A negro stood with lighted match in the Pyrate's magazine, 
 Prepared to blow all hands aloft should the King's men 
 
 chance to win. 
 
 By some this name is spelt Maynard.
 
 44 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Pyrate's broadside swept the sloops and whilst the cannon 
 
 roar'd 
 " Down underdeck ! " shouts Manyard : " And I'll call ye 
 
 when they board ! " 
 " We've sent the rogues to sulphur ! " bellows Teach ; " now 
 
 follow follow ! " 
 " On deck, my hearts ! " cries Manyard, and his men leap to 
 
 his holloa ! 
 Then lunge and flash ! then smite and smash ! 'tis figures 
 
 fallen or reeling : 
 The blood runs with them as they run, you see the small 
 
 sloop heeling. 
 But down, at last, with gaping wounds that Blackbeard 
 
 Teach falls dead, 
 And Manyard, spitting on his sword, cuts off the Pyrate's 
 
 head. 
 To the boltsprit-end they make it fast to hang there and 
 
 abide, 
 And it looked like an old crow's mangled nest with a dead 
 
 man's face inside. 
 Snickersnee, boys, snickersnee, 
 Sing this roundabout with me : 
 Masthead the black no-quarter flag with yellow skull and 
 
 bones. 
 
 Queen Sin bends on the bunting 
 When her son, Death, goes a-hunting, 
 And the course the Pyrate always steers is straight for Davy 
 
 Jones.
 
 0* jfctfer of tfe 
 
 THE Wanderer of the Deep is not the Jew who walks the 
 
 Land, 
 
 Which solemn truth my shipwreck gaveth me to understand. 
 Alone of fifty seamen I survived and swam ashore. 
 The scene of this disaster was the coast of Labrador. 
 A rugged, frozen, storm-dark spot ; my life-book had been 
 
 shut, 
 
 But for the shelter of a Codman's tight, tanr'd, empty hut. 
 There was meat upon the seafowl, there were eggs in all the 
 
 rocks; 
 There were squirrels, seals, and porcupines, and gannets in 
 
 great flocks. 
 
 The highlands yielded water and the lowlands yielded fuel ; 
 My tinder-box made fire, but the ice-tooth'd wind was cruel. 
 
 The iceberg starting out of fog would stare with ghastly 
 gleam: 
 
 Aurora clad in rainbow-lights would flicker, flash and stream. 
 
 The sudden fox with hearkening ears would bark, then dis- 
 appear : 
 
 Abreast was Cape Farewell I'd often wish it was Cape 
 Clear!
 
 46 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 But though the moss was soft and deep, like women's eyes in 
 
 hue; 
 But though the sea-bird flamed in flight in purple, rose and 
 
 blue; 
 But though the ice-floe broke the sun like a prism full of 
 
 glory ; 
 But though the coast looked fortress-like in tower and bastion 
 
 hoary ; 
 Whate'er the sight of beast, of bird, of growth upon that old 
 
 land, 
 The Spirit of desolation is the Sovereign of that cold land. 
 
 I went one morn to view the sea from a tall commanding 
 
 height ; 
 
 Its breast was caged in ribbe'd ice and nothing was in sight. 
 With spirit crushed by solitude my hut-path I retraced, 
 But entering, my hair stood up ! by what thing was I 
 
 faced ? 
 
 A Man do I call that Terror ? a being of human birth ? 
 Then never was such another man beheld upon this earth ! 
 He frown'd on me o'er folded arms definably unreal. 
 His clothes were pantaloons (fur out) made of the skin of 
 
 seal. 
 
 His gaberdine a frock was of fur like his cap of skin ; 
 His beard poured in smoke-like mass from hidden cheek and 
 
 chin. 
 
 His eyes shone faint as fallen stars when mirror'd in clear 
 
 ice; 
 His brows were bush'd with a pair ot mats like the skins of 
 
 two white mice ;
 
 THE FATHER OF THE SEA. 47 
 
 His hair, like vapour, clothed his back, as the cloud clothes 
 
 Table Mountain ; 
 His fingers seem'd mere spikes of ice which fringe a frozen 
 
 fountain. 
 His flesh was like the parchment that is black with beat of 
 
 drum; 
 I look'd above around below whence had this Terror 
 
 come? 
 I marked no boat no steed no sledge for fox or wolf or 
 
 deer: 
 Mother of God ! my hair stood up when I asked, " How 
 
 came you here ? " 
 His voice was hollow as the moan of wind in a sea-cave's 
 
 mouth : 
 " This is my answer : East and West, from the North pole to 
 
 the South 
 
 I'm the Wanderer of the Ocean, I'm the Father of the Sea, 
 I'm that which was, I'm that which is, I'm that which e'er 
 
 shall be ! " 
 
 " Thou'rt the creature of my loneliness," I cried, " and of a 
 
 mind 
 
 That's mad by heed of where it is and what it's left behind. 
 But though a Vision, be thou real ! as such some comfort 
 
 bring, 
 
 I'd rather trust the Lie than have no faith in anything ! " 
 And then spake I and said again, " My Lenten fare is lean, 
 Cold gannet and cold water and a sea-mew's egg between." 
 With haughty hand he stayed my tongue : " I am not here 
 
 for cheer ; 
 I am come to tell my story after which I'll disappear."
 
 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 He sat him down, I sat me down : or real or Fancy's freak 
 'Twas pleasant to have company, to hear even that clay 
 speak. 
 
 " I've been a sailor of the Ark, of Carthage, and of Tyre, 
 I've sailed with the Ancients of Gebal to coasts of snow and 
 
 fire; 
 
 I've sail'd in Lydian, Carian ships, Cilician and in Phrygian, 
 Babylonian and Assyrian, in Phcenician and in Scythian. 
 I've sail'd in boats of Egypt of acantha and papyrus, 
 And tamarisk (reed-wattled) forming rafts for those who hire 
 
 us; 
 I've sail'd with old Sataspes round the headland called 
 
 Spartel, 
 
 By way o' the Pillars of Hercules with Xerxes' stern cartel. 
 In mighty Alexander's fleet for India did I go. 
 To musick and the clang of arms and measur'd chant we 
 
 row. 
 
 " Our weapons gleam'd with the blue of steel and the light 
 
 of gold was there 
 In martial garb ; whilst brilliant dyes of pennons shook the 
 
 air. 
 
 The Phoenician ship was built of fir of Senir, and her masts 
 Were Lebanon cedars, and her oars of Bashan's oak which 
 
 lasts. 
 
 The benches of the rowers were of ivory from Chittim, 
 And the wise men who were pilots kept their vessel very 
 
 trim. 
 
 Her sails were made of linen with Egyptian broidery : 
 And Tarshish with her rich fairs, was her Merchant of the 
 
 Sea.
 
 THE FATHER OF THE SEA. 49 
 
 She loaded amber, corn and salt, and metal from the mine, 
 And chariot-cloths and products of the husbandman and 
 vine. 
 
 " The Libyan's silent barter, Damascus' precious gems, 
 The wheat and honey, oil and balm and Sheba's diadems, 
 The Arabian rams and silk-haired goats from Princes of 
 
 Kedar 
 Such freights I've known, such ships I've sailed in under 
 
 every star ! 
 I've scourM the seas with ruining Goths ; with Vikings I have 
 
 plunder'd, 
 Far as Orkney and the Shetlands and grim coasts by wild 
 
 foam sunderM 
 In the Holker and the Draker with the Dane my bow I've 
 
 bent, 
 The Flag o' the Raven flying to wrest Thanet's Isle from 
 
 Kent 
 I've sail'd with Swein for Norfolk's coast: his lofty vanes 
 
 were built 
 In shape of birds : Great Dragon is right royal with silk and 
 
 gilt. 
 She hangs abroad a standard in whose heart the Raven 
 
 reigns, 
 And she's like a moated Castle filled with fearless fiery 
 
 Danes." 
 
 I shudder'd : " Does your memory," I said, " go back to 
 
 Eden?" 
 
 " I talk not of that Paradise : but Denmark and of Sweden." 
 " How many (Eons old art thou ? " u O mortal, ask me not ! 
 But hold you this, because I'm here, by Time I'm not forgot. 
 
 D
 
 50 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Though slowly, when thou'rt waiting, sinks the sand inside 
 
 the glass, 
 Thou'lt find, despite impatience, that the long years swiftly 
 
 pass. 
 
 I'm the Sovran of the Ocean, whilst the world is I shall reign ; 
 With the Sailor I was suckled, with the Sailor I remain. 
 
 " In the drama of Invasion by the mighty Caesar play'd, 
 When that Roman lost his soldiers and the Briton got his 
 
 trade, 
 
 I steered a thrice-bank'd galley to the shallows of the Stour, 
 And saw the giants blue and fierce in hosts upon the shore. 
 They had chariots and coracles and darts which slew when 
 
 hurl'd, 
 
 The spirit of those Britons mock'd the Emperor of the world. 
 They fought for soil and freedom, for the forest and the glen. 
 For the yellow crop, the Druid's oak, the women and old 
 
 men; 
 
 For the children who as Britons born no Roman durst subdue, 
 For Britain then, Great Britain now, and then as now True 
 
 Blue! 
 
 "But of all the massive memories which form the pyramid 
 
 In which my spirit like a -King of Egypt, lieth hid, 
 
 None makes my blood run swifter, fills mine eyes with 
 
 prouder fire 
 Than the thought of Lord Colombus and his ship the " Saint 
 
 Maria." 
 Oh, name me in Life's Domesday Book a greater and a 
 
 grander, 
 A diviner seer, a kinglier soul as Prophet and Commander,
 
 THE FATHER OF THE SEA. 51 
 
 Who saw, with eyesight touch'd by God, a new world far 
 
 away, 
 
 More glorious than the Indies, more marvellous than Cathay. 
 He was born of men the monarch and his crown was God's 
 
 command. 
 
 No mere dynastic king was he, through theft of gold or land, 
 He was Sovran of the West whose sun flamed on his flag 
 
 unfurled, 
 And, God-like, what his genius made, that gave he to the 
 
 world. 
 
 " I see him now upon the deck, a figure sunk in thought ; 
 The light in which the New World shone, by the Prophet's 
 
 soul was caught. 
 
 He'd stand alone with passive mien and face of lion-power, 
 And rapt in spirit watch the West for hour after hour. 
 Three quiet, lonesome ships were we, our hearts were filled 
 
 with fear : 
 The land we knew was sunk astern, the unknown deep was 
 
 here. 
 
 The very Seaman's Card rebell'd : we could not con aright, 
 Nor could our saints and candle-vows snuff out St. Elmo's 
 
 light. 
 
 The demon of the waterspout disdain'd our crosswise knives, 
 The storm fiend spurn'd the butter-cake we made to save our 
 
 lives. 
 
 The seaweed clung about us and with catlike velvet claws 
 Stayed our sobbing keels in stern rebuke for daring Nature's 
 
 laws. 
 
 " But what could daunt our Admiral's heart ? when ' Land ! ' 
 
 was cried aloud, 
 Upon his knees he thank'd dear God : when lo ! it proved a 
 
 cloud !
 
 52 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 More reverent grew his up-turned eyes : whilst speechless he 
 
 adored ; 
 His was the faith that's noblest in its whole trust in the Lord." 
 
 The Wanderer's face seem'd vaguer yet : more dim the strange 
 
 man grew ; 
 
 His hair more vapour-like in fall, his eyes more misty blue ; 
 As a feebly lighted figure in a mirror darkly drawn 
 Retires into a phantom-shape as a star swoons into dawn ; 
 So seem'd this thing to fade and wane ; then in a voice as 
 
 dree, 
 
 As the cries of drowning men heard in the calling of the sea, 
 He said, " Pray fetch me water to refresh my tired tone." 
 Forth stepp'd I and on coming back, I found myself alone ! 
 
 But hark ! what is that echo in the breakers on the shore ? 
 
 What is that rhythm dwelling in the winds of Labrador ? 
 
 What chant was in the fox's bark before the whaler found me ? 
 
 What song was in the thunder-making ice and bergs which 
 bound me? 
 
 What was't I heard a-thrilling through the coloured northern- 
 lights ? 
 
 In the comet's silver javelin sheering through the silent 
 nights ? 
 
 In the ice-sheathed cliffs which sentinel the giant kelp below : 
 
 In the hill-side dumb with frozen trees, in the Arctic moon's 
 rainbow ? 
 
 I heard the rhyme in soundless things : its voice no heart 
 could miss 
 
 In flight of bird, in sleep of seal that rhyme was ever this : 
 
 " I'm the Wanderer of the Ocean, I'm the Father of the Sea, 
 I'm that which was, I'm that which is, I'm that which e'er 
 shall be."
 
 (A Duet by two aged seamen of Belvedere.) 
 
 I. 
 
 JACK. AH, Tom, the good old days are fled, 
 
 The sailing ship has pass'd ; 
 Why is she numbered with the dead ? 
 TOM. She was too good to last. 
 
 II. 
 
 JACK. Why, right you are ! and what they call 
 
 A sailing ship these days 
 Is iron and two sides o' wall 
 TOM. A tank as never pays. 
 
 III. 
 
 JACK. With double yards and no jibboom 
 And anchors stowed as how ? 
 
 TOM. Why^ in the 'awse-pipes where there's room 
 In the metal wedge-shaped bow. 
 
 IV. 
 
 JACK. With monkey masts and narrow gut 
 
 And water-ways awash, 
 She's like a lean and tattered slut, 
 TOM. Half-starved on longshore swash.
 
 54 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 V. 
 
 JACK. Her clews are fathoms out of hail 
 
 Of every slim yard-arm : 
 To wind'ard she can never sail 
 TOM. Td rather boss a farm. 
 
 VI. 
 
 JACK. The Dago and the Chaney man, 
 
 The Dutchman and Hindoo, 
 The Proosian and Hi-tal-ian 
 TOM. Do form her measly crew. 
 
 VII. 
 
 JACK. They flies our red flag on such craft, 
 
 And honours thus the rabble ; 
 No Angleesh spoken fore or aft 
 TOM. Nowt speech but gabble-babble. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 JACK. The windlass-ends are dead and gone, 
 
 On which we used to lean ; 
 They've done away with holy-stone 
 TOM. ' Cos whafs there left to clean ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 JACK. 'Tis spit and polish as you say, 
 
 All's brass-work and all's paint. 
 Is there a single seam to pay ? 
 TOM. Well y Jack, maybe there ain't.
 
 THE SAILING SHIP. 55 
 
 X. 
 
 JACK. Ay, that's so ; where's the balance-reef, * 
 
 The lower stunsaii boom ? 
 But fo'csle soup and pork and beef 
 TOM. Will stay till crock d doom. 
 
 XI. 
 JACK. The weevil's still the ancient worm ; 
 
 The duff came in the Ark ; 
 The cook still makes the stomach squirm 
 TOM. Though a man was born a shark. 
 
 XII. 
 JACK. Yes, pay and food goes alters on, 
 
 It's well we're both ashore ! 
 It's " Rise up, Jack, and sit down, John," 
 TOM. Then now and hevermore ! 
 
 XIII. 
 JACK. I loves to recollect them days 
 
 When the bows were full and stout ; 
 When seldom would a ship miss stays 
 
 In putting her about. 
 " Raise tacks and sheets," then " mainsail haul ! " 
 
 Then round the foreyards swing ; 
 The bo 'sun pipes his silver call 
 TOM. And the crew in English sing. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 JACK. With forty men betwixt the rails, 
 Three taws'ls reefd together ; 
 And sights of rum that never fails 
 TOM. lo please in every weather. 
 
 The fir.-t reef in a four-reef tingle topsail was so named.
 
 56 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 XV. 
 
 JACK. Them day's are gone and with them's sunk 
 
 The ro-mance of the sea. 
 How can a sailor-man get drunk 
 
 On cocoa and ship's tea ? 
 The owners say it's good for men 
 
 To be denied their tot. 
 What say ye, Tom ? how goes it then ? 
 TOM. What says It Tommy rot ? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 BOTH. Oh vanish'd are our ocean joys, 
 
 When young we was and haler ! 
 When we was scarcely more than boys, 
 
 And a sailor was a sailor. 
 It's steamboats now, and sailing ships, 
 
 The likes of which we've sung ; 
 'Twas other hearts and other lips 
 
 When you and me was young.
 
 i. 
 
 THE hot sea sheeting to its rim is like a plain of yellow 
 
 grease : 
 Its surface swarms with sheen of oil which coils and 
 
 swells with ghostly motion. 
 That sullen bosom is not rest; that fiery stillness is not 
 
 peace ! 
 The terror of the earthquake's shock sleeps in that scene 
 
 of Tropic ocean. 
 The confines steam in sweat of heat, the sky looks down 
 
 with brassy stare; 
 The pale sun in the water hangs a critron's image 
 
 under him; 
 The Spirit of Life is breathless 'neath those heights ot 
 
 soundless thunder there; 
 
 Forms phantom-like as shapes in dreams glare out, 
 then sulkily grow dim. 
 
 II. 
 
 No breath of God that jelly breast gives life to in a 
 
 fleeting twinkle ; 
 
 It seem'd as hell had belch'd a flame which, gone, 
 had left the sea aghast.
 
 58 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 The wan half-moon lay like a scar, upon the sky a dry 
 
 pale wrinkle ; 
 The lifted shark's wet fin scarce shines before its sudden 
 
 lightning's passed. 
 Centred within that fire-fed zone a schooner floats, a gracious 
 
 form. 
 Long, keen, low, black, a clipper bow, sheath'd to the 
 
 bends with yellow metal. 
 Vast wings of cloth for the Doldrums' sigh or for the 
 
 blast of ocean's storm, 
 
 Swift as the stag or Arab steed to chase, to fly, to 
 lose or get all. 
 
 III. 
 
 The schooner was the " Laughing Girl," a slaver own'd in 
 
 Liverpool ; 
 
 She carried eighteen carronades, a bow and one stern- 
 chaser, too; 
 Her scantling was of fortress-strength, a gallant ship the 
 
 waves to rule. 
 But oh ! God's love ! contrast her name with the meaning 
 
 of the flag she flew ! 
 Now as she roasting floated, on her decks of almond 
 
 whiteness paced 
 Her Captain (Williams) and Mate Jones, whilst forward 
 
 on the foc'sle-head, 
 Her sailors loll'd in shade of sail the furnace-heat could 
 
 not be faced, 
 
 Although that eye of flame above was rayless like a 
 sun that's dead.
 
 THE SLAVER "LAUGHING GIRL." 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Blow, blow, you sweet winds, where are ye?" cries 
 
 Captain Williams to his mate; 
 If the mill-horse round of life ain't this, then where'll 
 
 you find the sea-line bigger? 
 Tis cockroach all and footy grease : it isn't hotter at 
 
 hell's gate; 
 And hark ! the wailing through the gratings hangels 
 
 themselves can't please the nigger." 
 44 Six hundred," says the bull-faced mate, " makes hishee- 
 
 hashee fit for stewin' ! 
 So 'elp me ! if they're not fetched up to breathe, in 
 
 gangs, an hour of air, 
 Two-thirds 'ull perish and the rest will mean the mate's 
 
 and master's ruin. 
 
 Hark to their groans ! the children's cries are almost 
 more than I can bear." 
 
 V. 
 
 44 Avast, you tallow-liver'd swab ! " cried Captain Williams, 
 
 fierce and yellow, 
 "Are slaving men young ladies, ha? Turn to and blow 
 
 a galleon's breeze ! 
 Belay your sentimental whines : we'll clap a choke on yelp 
 
 and bellow 
 When the wind that gives the schooner legs shall bring 
 
 those yawling black fiends ease. 
 But what is that? see West-Sou'- West ! the sea-line's blue, 
 
 the air is clearing ; 
 
 " A sail ! abeam ! " our forecastle hails ; I see her like a 
 star there growing !
 
 60 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 She brings the wind 'tis blue ahead ! what is the road 
 
 the stranger's steering? 
 
 A man-of-war ? you lily heart ! oh ! if you durst say 
 that, not knowing ! " 
 
 VI. 
 
 To wind'ard in a broadening path of blue and splendour 
 
 hung the star; 
 The sea was sweet with dainty lace in every ripple's 
 
 nimble head. 
 The brassy veil stream'd off the sun, the girdle shone 
 
 glass-clear afar, 
 You thought of the sudden scene of life when Christ 
 
 shall judge the Quick and Dead. 
 The stranger now had rais'd her hull, her growth of 
 
 canvas proved her pace; 
 She was proud aloft in height of hoist, her larboard 
 
 studding sails were set; 
 The white foam sprang in snow and gold, and frolick'd 
 
 to the counter's race. 
 
 Says the Captain of the " Laughing Girl," " She's a 
 British twenty gun corvette f " 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Hell's thunder ! Do you see her flag ? the halliards arch 
 
 beyond the leach; 
 We'll show no colours ! Here's the breeze ! Up helm, 
 
 and off for life or death ! 
 Ease, nimbly, ease ! how doth she spin ! the corvette yaws 
 
 flames red in speech ! 
 
 A gun ! the round ball drops astern. So, curse you, 
 waste your hated breath !
 
 THE SLAVER "LAUGHING GIRL." 61 
 
 Now luff ! how bend the loaded masts ! huzza ! the white 
 
 brine leaps the rail. 
 Load to the muzzle take good aim those bolts proclaim 
 
 our caliber. 
 The devil choke those howls below ! . . . . why, 
 
 twenty she could we outsail ! 
 
 Shall the clipper schooner, ' Laughing Girl,' be taken 
 by the like of htr f " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Now when the Slaver haul'd the wind the corvette put 
 
 her helm down too: 
 Took in her stunsails, tried the range; then one by one 
 
 five cannon blazed. 
 Twas breezing up, the weather-seaboard, gloomy with 
 
 ebony wet cloud grew ; 
 The straining schooner flashes on, a sentient thing by 
 
 fear half-crazed. 
 Again, again her cannon belch, and silk-white clouds sweep 
 
 through her masts. 
 In cataracts the crystals roar in snow-soft spume and 
 
 shrieking streams. 
 And midst the warring din of guns, the sailors' shouts, the 
 
 freshening blasts, 
 
 You hear the agony below in men's deep moans and 
 women's screams. 
 
 IX. 
 
 "We'll thrash her hull down 'ere 'tis gloom, and lose her 
 
 when it comes on black. 
 
 Stand firm, ye spars, good tacks, stout sheets ! the joke 
 is his who last hath laughed !
 
 62 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Cease firing ! up preventer stays ! rowse aft each sheet, 
 
 bowse taut each tack : 
 So ! all is well ! now luff a point ; she's square-rigged, we 
 
 are fore and aft ! 
 May fire consume those blacks below ! They sink in 
 
 hell a deeper hell ! 
 We'll trail a long gun through the hatch and silence 'em 
 
 by help of langridge. 
 The corvette's lungs are in her guns ; the slaver's heels our 
 
 rhetoric tell ! 
 
 Those screeching black owls in the hold shall hear us 
 speak the corvette's language." 
 
 X. 
 
 To larboard the Avenger hangs; the wind amain takes 
 
 tempest-weight ; 
 She rages through each boiling trough, mad as a gall'd 
 
 whale, crimson-spouting. 
 In the gathering breeze that bows her down the slaving 
 
 schooner hears her fate; 
 'Tis shrilled in shrouds, 'tis drummed in sail, 'tis hideous 
 
 in the negroes' shouting. 
 The lightning leaps, the thunder roars, the corvette tops a 
 
 bursting sea, 
 Her side flames in a line of fire the tempest storms 
 
 the black bolt smites ; 
 The pale shape of the " Laughing Girl " has vanished on 
 
 the corvette's lee, 
 
 And nothing but a mastless hulk rides, foam-swept, to 
 her ruined heights !
 
 THE SLAVER "LAUGHING GIRL." 63 
 
 XI. 
 
 That broadside was the hand of God : it swept the masts 
 
 clean overboard : 
 It killed the Captain and five men, and left the 
 
 " Laughing Girl " a raft 
 The corvette stood by all that night, for through the 
 
 night the ocean warred ; 
 The morn disclosed her still full-rigged ; but where was 
 
 she, the fore and aft? 
 A black length gleaming in the swirl : a few whites 
 
 clinging here and there : 
 And vollies of smoking crystals hurled volcanic from the 
 
 mountain waves ! 
 Twas not before the afternoon that even those British 
 
 hearts would dare 
 
 To face that hollow sea and board the " Laughing 
 Girl" to free the slaves. 
 
 XII. 
 
 O pitying heart of Christ ! what tale of horror ever 
 
 match 'd that hold? 
 They open'd the hatch and fell away, vomiting, from the 
 
 putrid air : 
 And faint and far came up the groan of human beings of 
 
 God's mould : 
 So soaked in human sweat the haze, at first they saw 
 
 not what was there. 
 Six hundred made that Slaver's freight: they found but 
 
 thirty-seven alive; 
 
 Twas like the well of a fishing-smack, thick-laden with 
 dead mackerel ;
 
 64 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 The women and children all lay choked, the lustiest blacks 
 
 alone survive. 
 
 Dear God ! that ever men should make for their fellow- 
 men such an awful hell ! 
 
 But glory to the Crimson Cross : that Star of the Slave 
 
 where'er it glows, 
 Whether schooner, junk, or Arab dhow, when that flag 
 
 comes the Slaver goes. 
 If we began this trade in man, our confession's this by 
 
 land and sea, 
 No matter how you read your laws, where Britain's flag 
 
 flies there man's free !
 
 Qgfaffab of (pefcr etrano. 
 
 (As recited by Garcilasso de la Vega, and included in 
 the old Collections of Shipwrecks ; and as it was related by 
 Peter Serrano to the Emperor Charles V. of Germany, and 
 King of Spain (1500-1558) "all which time he nourished 
 his hair and beard, to serve as an evidence and proof of 
 his past life." Duncan's Mariner's Chronicle,) 
 
 I. 
 
 GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA ! we'll recall the sailor's bow 
 When growling through an Ave or a saint-and- candle vow. 
 His sword-hilt was a holy cross to fright the circling demon ; 
 Garcilasso de la Vega ! tell how pious was your seaman. 
 Beelzebub, la Vega, sends the ocean's goblins forth. 
 Tis Lucifer makes the rainbow, South the Line, the same as 
 
 North; 
 But tell, who salts the South Sea with the salt of the 
 
 Atlantic? 
 And tell, who's impious semblances drive Spanish sailors 
 
 frantic ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Plunge thine hand into that fire-ball which floats at thy yard- 
 arm: 
 
 It scorcheth not? a flaming thing! whence comes its hellish 
 charm? 
 
 E
 
 66 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Look o'er the side a fat man swims ! with lickerish eye he'll 
 
 wink! 
 
 It will cost an Agnus Dei to compel that man to sink. 
 Th' Enchanted Island draws the ship with viewless chains of 
 
 magic, 
 
 And if no holy priest's aboard the carrack's fate is tragic. 
 The fire that leaps alongside's from the Sulphur Lake below \ 
 "Tis Satan spins you water-holes to show the road to go. 
 
 III. 
 
 Yet for all such sweatful terrors ye've the Litany and Ave, 
 The Pater Noster^ Credo, and thine heart's cry in Peccavi ! 
 But what's the power you read of in great Charles the Fifth, 
 
 his Anno ? 
 Who but the sea could make God's mould so pitiful as 
 
 Serrano ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Three little sand-isles blink upon a surface shot with pearl ; 
 
 They twinkle like the heart-throb in the white wrist of a girl ; 
 
 When the sky's black and the seas roar to the tempest's 
 shrieking lash, 
 
 The glares those islands, quivering, dart are like the light- 
 ning's flash. 
 
 A carrack with fore-topmast gone rolled on the sulky heave, 
 
 Her scuppers spouting brilliant brine proclaim her hull a 
 sieve ; 
 
 Within a mile the sand-isles shine like moons upon the blue, 
 
 Her drift is sure the water gains what shall her Cap- 
 tain do ? 
 
 With sudden roar the ship blows up ! and sinks with an 
 hundred lives ! 
 
 Garcilasso, 'tis Serrano who alone that blast survives..
 
 THE BALLAD OF PETER SERRANO. 67 
 
 V. 
 
 With frog-like legs he struck the sand and waded through the 
 surf, 
 
 No sight had he of bush or tree or guinea-grass or turf; 
 
 A blinding eye of brilliant sand whose lids are formed of 
 foam; 
 
 No shelter from the vertic sun, no cavern for a home. 
 
 He stood him up, this Peter, and the ocean he explored ; 
 
 The raft-flat island brought the sea-line very close aboard. 
 
 Now here, now there, a piece of blackened timber rose and 
 fell, 
 
 Or a crimson patch where sharks had fed stain'd the glass- 
 smooth slope of swell. 
 
 Where are your isles, Serrano ? where were lost the carrack's 
 crew? 
 
 Garcilasso maketh answer : " Off the north coast of Peru." 
 
 VI. 
 
 No loneliness could equal his : the sea was at his throat ; 
 He had no hut no food no drink no wood to make a 
 
 boat. 
 He found some brackish water here and there in a sandy 
 
 breast : 
 He groped for shrimps and cockles, and he gorged them all 
 
 undressed. 
 The sun sank in a glorious shield which filled the western 
 
 sky, 
 
 Twas big as thrice one hundred suns to that lorn sailor's eye. 
 But scarcely had the fire-rim sank when from the east sprang 
 
 night, 
 With her velvet mantle flown with stars and a moon's hom 
 
 full of light
 
 68 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Now from the night sinks Solitude upon Serrano's sand, 
 And spectres of the carrack's crew walk pass'd on either 
 
 hand. 
 They rise up from the wan foam where the surf is making 
 
 moan, 
 And never doth one turn his head, but stalks as though 
 
 alone. 
 
 The weaving fingers of the dusk then conjure up a ship; 
 Serrano starts the phantom fades the cry dies on his lip. 
 O Queen of Heaven ! it is those cheats of fountain, sail and 
 
 beach 
 Which break the heart with images no keel nor oar can 
 
 reach. 
 
 Of that first night, la Vega, hast thou in thy story spoken, 
 But of Serrano's goblin-fears I find in thee no token. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Those eyes of fire above him ! and those whispers in the air ! 
 That fitful flash of phosphor ! and that drowned man's rooted 
 
 stare! 
 That sobbing in the shadow ! and that scream of midnight 
 
 bird! 
 The spectre that is seert not! and the voice that's never 
 
 heard ! 
 
 The slumber of the dark moon in the bright arm of her horn ! 
 The wheeling of the planets and the mystery of the dawn ! 
 The charnel evocation by the moist smell of black weed ! 
 The dark imaginations of a goblin-haunted creed ! 
 Garcilasso ! is there ever from St. Peter to Stefano 
 A saint could rescue from the sea that sailor-man Serrano ?
 
 THE BALLAD OF PETER SERRANO. 69 
 
 IX. 
 
 He needs a fire to make a smoke for a passing ship to mark ; 
 He dives and finds two pebbles and his knife chips out a 
 
 spark. 
 He dries sea-weed for fuel and with threads of shirt makes 
 
 tinder ; 
 
 Garcilasso ! tell what obstacles could Peter Serrano hinder ? 
 He spies some turtle, cuts their throat, drinks deep in what 
 
 they welter, 
 He eats their flesh and with their armour builds himself a 
 
 shelter. 
 The sun hangs o'er him every noon, his clothes fall from 
 
 his back ; 
 
 He walks about, a naked man, his yellow skin turns black. 
 Thick bristles clothe his leathern flesh stiff as the horns of 
 
 rams, 
 His beard pours down below his knees and his hair conceals 
 
 his hams. 
 
 X. 
 
 Man swings as true to self as to the north the card on 
 
 gimbals, 
 In suffering he is loud in prayer and gorgeous, too, in 
 
 symbols. 
 To the saints he bows, to heaven he vows ; to remedy his 
 
 evil, 
 He keeps his flesh, forswears the world, and prays against 
 
 the devil. 
 
 But Senor de la Vega, I do pray thee name to me 
 The saint whose will can cure or kill like the saint they 
 
 call the sea?
 
 70 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Is there e'er a Power could mould God's clay born in the 
 
 shape of man, oh ! 
 By subduing the soul, as did the sea, to inform that old 
 
 Serrano ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 In a year Serrano hath become a prodigy out of Nature : 
 A scaly, hair-robed, bristling fish, a two-legg'd alligator. 
 How should he look in thrice twelve moons, when one dim 
 
 dawn he spied 
 
 Upon his isle a lonely man close to the water-side? 
 He stood amazed ! transfixt with fear ! was it Satan ? who 
 
 but he? 
 The other turn'd saw Peter shriek'd and made as though 
 
 to flee. 
 " Aroint thee ! " screams Serrano ; bawls the other, " What's 
 
 thy breed?" 
 " Avoid ! avoid ! " yells Peter, and begins the Apostles' 
 
 Creed. 
 " Et verbum came factum est" . . . . the stranger he 
 
 began : 
 " Art truly man ? " asks Peter " Slife ! what other thing 
 
 than man ? " 
 On this into each other's arms they rush'd, and Peter's 
 
 shape 
 Made t'other look as though a man was choking a huge 
 
 black ape. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The stranger proved a Spaniard : by a plank the sand he 
 
 gained. 
 With water and some calipash this guest was entertained.
 
 THE BALLAD OF PETER SERRANO. 71 
 
 He'd been wreckt: so had Serrano: but on Peter lay this 
 
 curse, 
 From a sailor he'd been changed to fish with bristles, 
 
 scales and worse. 
 The Spaniard looked him o'er and o'er, and Peter he 
 
 stared back ; 
 The Spaniard's skin was yellow, but Serrano's flesh was 
 
 black. 
 The Spaniard wore some clothing, but Serrano's coat was 
 
 bristle ; 
 His hosier was the hair that draped him, skin and bone 
 
 and gristle. 
 He was like a magic fountain gushing hair from head to 
 
 knee: 
 His guest could scarcely swallow food, so horrified was he. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But time on sandy islets is the time of towns which teem : 
 
 Every actor is a shadow, every drama is a dream. 
 
 This thief of human life soon stript the Spaniard to the 
 
 skin, 
 And if Peter looked like Satan sure the Spaniard looked like 
 
 Sin. 
 His hair spread out around his waist, his eye-lash almost 
 
 blinded, 
 Quoth Serrano, Man, your skin is blue, 'twill soon turn 
 
 black as mine did." 
 Scales swarmed as doth the cockle, but whilst Peter 
 
 nourished bristles, 
 This husbandman produced a crop ot things that looked 
 
 like thistles.
 
 72 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Now were these men a marvellous pair and strangely like 
 
 each other; 
 Satan himself seem'd Peter and the Spaniard look'd his 
 
 Brother. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But though the Sea may rob a man of clothes and shift 
 
 his fashions, 
 She has no influence o'er the soul in changing human 
 
 passions; 
 
 Of thy story, Garcilasso, is this truth the useful moral; 
 Will ye credit that these bristlers separated through a 
 
 quarrel ? 
 
 They were homeless and forsaken, they were naked cast- 
 aways : 
 Their fear was that upon this isle they'd hideously end 
 
 their days. 
 And they quarrell'd o'er a turtle-steak ! with hot blood 
 
 filled with hate, 
 They fell to blows, and with horrid oaths, swore to live 
 
 separate ! 
 
 'Tis a law among the sages that all wisdom is expedience : 
 In which, O Garcilasso, is included man's convenience. 
 A long week held these men apart through a long week's 
 
 freakful weather, 
 Then each the other wanted and the bristlers came together ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 The months pass, oh, the months pass, and a ship floats 
 
 into sight : 
 The smoke of the frenzied castaways soars to a towering 
 
 height ;
 
 THE BALLAD OF PETER SERRANO. 73 
 
 The ship stems in on square wings and she sends a boat 
 
 ashore ; 
 
 But when the crew the lom men see they hang upon the oar. 
 "Who be they? .... Are ye demons?" then they 
 
 shout with straining eyes; 
 " We are Christians ! " bawls Serrano, and they both chant 
 
 litanies. 
 " Oh, hear us speak the Credo judge us not by what we 
 
 wear ! " 
 Quo' the steersman, " Are ye men or are ye goblins made 
 
 of hair?" 
 They crossed themselves with frantic zeal, and both kept 
 
 yelling "Save me!" 
 
 The Spaniard sang a holy dirge, Serrano raved in Ave: 
 They dance and kneel, with sobs appeal ; " D'ye call 
 
 them monsters human?" 
 Says the bowman ; " If so, who of us durst swear he's 
 
 born of woman?" 
 But pity now must vanquish fear: says the helmsman, 
 
 " If so be 
 
 You're truly what ye say ye are, then come along with me ! " 
 Serrano and the Spaniard both wade in and climb aboard, 
 And the crew admired that they should kneel at once and 
 
 thank the Lord. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Garcilasso's tale is ended : first, the bristly Spaniard dies, 
 Then in Spain arrives Serrano, very sad and very wise. 
 He is sad by stress of mem'ry, he is wise by stress of bread, 
 So he farms his beard and bristles, and with oil manures his 
 
 head,
 
 74 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Forth goes his fame before him, people flock from near and 
 
 far, 
 
 The Emperor Charles endows him and he dies at Panama. 
 All the barbers and wig-makers in Old Spain in Charles' 
 
 Anno, 
 Would flout the bald and woman-jowled by speaking of 
 
 Serrano ; 
 " Do ye seek your hair should grow," they said, " for our 
 
 dyes of every hue ? 
 Then get ye cast away on sand off the north coast of 
 
 Peru."
 
 Qftaroonefc. 
 
 (To Maroon. An old form of sea-punishment. A man 
 was set ashore upon a desert island or uninhabited coast 
 with a musket, ammunition, and food to last for a few days, 
 and left.) 
 
 I. 
 
 A PLACID sea, a breathing breast, 
 
 A wistful blue like a Scotch girl's een ; 
 Upon the light of her sails, at rest, 
 A saucy schooner may be seen. 
 With each soft roll she shows her guns, 
 Her brasswork sparks in little suns. 
 The copper, rising to the bends, 
 A gold light with the brine's blue blends. 
 Her silk-like sails with shadows creeping 
 Flash out and fade like a gull's wings sweeping. 
 A beautiful and deadly schooner, 
 Whose flag proclaims that Pyrates own her. 
 Why lurketh she anear that isle 
 Hove to within, say, half a mile ? 
 The larboard gangway is unshipped and overboard a boat is 
 
 hove: 
 
 She breaks the sea like a half-tide rock you'd think that 
 jolly-boat was stove.
 
 76 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 " Now tumble in ! " shouts Captain Skull. " Give him a 
 
 musket ! " is his yell : 
 " Some biscuit, water, powder and ball : then leave him to 
 
 enjoy that hell ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 That hell! at noon heaven's eye of fire, 
 
 Stares shadowless upon the island. 
 The foam-heap'd beach soars high and higher, 
 
 Where rears the mid-isle's bush-strown high land. 
 On coral shore whose sheen is pearl, 
 Breakers their rainbow-thunder hurl ; 
 One mountain lifts a burning cone ; 
 Clouds rise from it : it stands alone. 
 'Tis Nature's altar to her Lord, 
 Who there, with heart of fire's adored. 
 Prismatic birds there sing and call ; 
 With madrigals the waterfall 
 Sweetens all sounds ; and soft delight 
 Is found in shadows cool as night. 
 Who sighs not for this Paradise but hold ! no human thing 
 
 is there ! 
 Trees, flowers and sparkling cataracts, and perfumed dells, 
 
 gay birds o' th' air ; 
 The music of the fanning trees, the organ-throb of the 
 
 breaker's roll 
 
 But these things to a lonely man ? can they suffice a lonely 
 soul! 
 
 III. 
 
 There's a fissure in that coral strand, 
 Beyond it is a wide ravine.
 
 MAROONED. 77 
 
 The surf roars high on either hand, 
 
 But the water smoothly spreads between. 
 For that small creek the rowers made, 
 Fierce, black-hued rogues in heart and trade, 
 With pistol'd belts and tassePd caps, 
 Shapes fit for chains and iron wraps. 
 Their oars strike sun-gold from the brine 
 No brutaller fiends e'er crossed the Line. 
 And with them sat their murdered mate, 
 Alive, but doomed to an hideous fate. 
 To live alone, alone to die, 
 Never a ship to come anigh, 
 To starve, to groan, O hearts of stone, through the blinding 
 
 day and moonless night ! 
 To stare into the distant sea till madness come with fainting 
 
 sight ! 
 Such thoughts were in those ruffians' hearts when now and 
 
 then they heard him moan, 
 
 Fiends as they were they could not jeer and think of him as 
 there, alone ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 They left him and he sat him down ; 
 
 Beside him were his food and gun ; 
 He watched them go: his fixed frown 
 
 Was marble as by sculptor done. 
 Upon the blue the row-boat blurred, 
 She dwindled till she looked a bird, 
 Then melted in the schooner's light, 
 Who trimmed her sails and took to flight 
 His eye was on her as she went ; 
 Like an ice-spire with the blue she blent,
 
 78 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Sank, star-like, in the liquid air, 
 And the great Sea circled bright and bare. 
 As though of stone he sate and frowned 
 At the Sea that swarmed and writhed around ; 
 Till the schooner, like a meteor, dipped and left the firm rim 
 
 tenantless ; 
 Then rose he with heart-shaking sigh and scowl of wrath 
 
 and fierce distress. 
 What was this hapless wretch's crime which he in this wise 
 
 must atone? 
 
 He looked aloft God was not there : nor in that isle he 
 was alone ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Of all the Pyrates of his age, 
 
 By the gallows' height was this man worst. 
 Martel and Bonnet, Teach and Page, 
 
 Rackham and others of the Accurst, 
 Roberts and Briggs, and Smith and Low, 
 Were kings in the Rovers' Inferno. 
 But this man, Roger Coate by name, 
 In frightful crime put all to shame. 
 In arson, plunder, murder, rape, 
 In villainy of every shape, 
 In cruelty beyond men's speech, 
 Triple-crowning even Blackbeard Teach, 
 The completest artist then afloat 
 Was this marooned man, Roger Coate. 
 He had been Captain of the ship when Moses Skull had 
 
 served as mate ; 
 
 But Skull had won the crew's regard and turned their fear of 
 Coate to hate.
 
 MAROONED. 79 
 
 " Maroon him !" was the cry of all who swore by Skull and 
 
 his cross-bone : 
 And so we find the schooner gone and Captain Roger Coate 
 
 alone. 
 
 VI. 
 
 How shocking is the moonlit-deep 
 
 Who views it from his island jail 1 
 How terrible the hills which sleep, 
 
 The flowers which stand up cold and pale ! 
 If this be to the lonely man, 
 The honest Selkirk of Ju'an. 
 Then what the horrors fill the air 
 When the lone soul finds that God's not there ! 
 Tis Memory's actors throng the scene, 
 And mouth of now and what hath been. 
 Each enters at the devil's nod 
 For Satan is, where there's no God. 
 And what stage should the Pyrate's be 
 If not for hell-fired mimicry 
 Of the ravish'd wife and the flaming ship, of the murder'd 
 
 Captain's corpse in water ; 
 Of the cruel plank and smoking hold, of drink, of booty, 
 
 lust, and slaughter ? 
 They come to flout in reeling bout, to leap, to bleed, to 
 
 drown, to groan 
 
 Wish ye not joy to the man marooned who's with his 
 goblins all alone ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 That ocean gem's his ocean grave ; 
 His ghosts are with him night and day ;
 
 8o THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 In nightmares shall the spectres rave, 
 
 They'll jibber watching him decay. 
 
 They'll act again their purple part : 
 
 With teeth of fire they'll chew his heart. 
 
 He'll flee them on the coral sand, 
 
 They'll fly with him on either hand. 
 
 He'll seek the cloisters of the brake 
 
 And find them waiting, wide awake. 
 
 They'll chase him to the dizzy steep 
 
 But th' heroic murderer durst not leap. 
 
 They'll shriek with laughter when he groans 
 
 And chew his heart and pick his bones. 
 In thunder, gale, and bellowing sea, he'll hear the Spirits of 
 
 the Past. 
 In peace or storm each goblin plays the hideous part for 
 
 which he's cast. 
 His skeleton by sailors found shall never make his story 
 
 known, 
 How lovely was that Godless isle, how terrible his life alone.
 
 ance'e 
 
 1804. 
 
 (" To prevent all thought among my men of surrendering 
 ye shippe and make ym desperate, I nailed the ensigne to the 
 staff from head to foot, stapled and fore-cockt the ensigne 
 staff fast up. I resolved to part with shippe and life together." 
 Extract from Log of Hon. E. I. Co.'s ship, " Chambers," 
 1703-) 
 
 A SAILOR SINGS. 
 
 DID you ever hear tell of old Commodore Dance, 
 Who frighten'd Linois* heavy warships of France ? 
 Over the sea, full of bohea, 
 Silk worth in fathoms whole lakhs of rupee. 
 Curios in ivory, cages of cockatoo, 
 Monkeys so ill-bred they jibber and mock at you. 
 Turban'd Hindoo, chairs of bamboo, 
 Calicoes, dimities, groceries too ; 
 Hubble-bubbles and curry for greasy ragout, 
 Christian and Musselman, Parsee and Jew. 
 Here was a bag for that canny Mossoo ! 
 Indigo, capsicum, joss from John's churches, 
 China plate, silver birds strutting on perches ;
 
 82 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Masks and fans, pots and pans woundily fine, 
 Camphor and betel to make the teeth shine ; 
 Birds'-nests for soup-drinkers, puppies for potting, 
 Skulls for museums, all grinning and rotting. 
 Nankeen, musk, arrack, dried apples to stew, 
 Malt and spruce essence to flavour the brew. 
 Never again would Crapeau get the chance 
 That was his when invited to drink tea with Dance. 
 
 THE PLEASANT BALLAD. 
 
 I. 
 It was early in the morning on the North Pacific Ocean, 
 
 And a fleet of lofty Indiamen were coming from Canton. 
 They slowly swayed, like snow-crown'd bergs, in soft majestic 
 
 motion 
 As though a quaint and solemn noise of musick led them 
 
 on. 
 Their royals were stowed, but still they rear'd a tower from 
 
 each course; 
 
 In every open porthole grinned a dangerous British gun. 
 I should not love to be the foe who fouled athwart their 
 
 hawse, 
 Whose fathers were the seamen that our mighty Empire 
 
 won. 
 Sing honour to the Commodore commanding the " Earl 
 
 Camden!" 
 What cared he for the Squadron but to mutter, "They be 
 
 d d, then?" 
 
 What heeded ' Warley's," " Alfred's," " Ganges' " hearts and 
 
 all the others ? 
 
 Were not they as were Lord Nelson's men, " A Noble Band 
 of Brothers ? "
 
 DANCES TEA 'FIGHT. 83 
 
 So beat to quarters ! sound the drum ! and wish that squadron 
 
 joy, 
 
 Who hoped to capture Dance for France through Admiral 
 Linois. 
 
 II. 
 
 Twas observed that Pura Auro bore exactly West South 
 
 West, 
 When the " Royal George " made a signal of four strange 
 
 sail, French in rig. 
 
 We were sixteen British Indiamen, and of our fleet the rest 
 Were Country Wallahs, forming thirty-nine ships and a 
 
 brig. 
 The sea looks full of stately craft, each bright breast fills 
 
 with lightning 
 The blue profound beneath the hulls whose bands with 
 
 ordnance gape. 
 The clouds hang in the sky like frost, the dim sea-line is 
 
 whitening 
 Like a delicate film ahead on the course which our China 
 
 galleons shape. 
 The Captains pace in cocked hat with side arras and buttons 
 
 beaming, 
 Buff waistcoat and buff breeches and some gold embroidery 
 
 gleaming ; 
 Blue coat lappel'd with velvet and square shoes whose buckles 
 
 glow 
 
 All giving life and colour to a spacious radiant show. 
 Why should the lurking enemy our peaceful ships annoy ? 
 And shall you capture Dance for France ? We guess you 
 
 won't, Linois !
 
 84 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Squadron was a Galilean, one massive seventy-four, 
 
 " Marengo " flying Linois' flag ; the others were " Berceau," 
 " La Belle Poule," and the " Semillante," and one black brig 
 
 of war : 
 Twice ninety-four great cannon told the metal they could 
 
 throw. 
 
 Dance eye'd them through his telescope, then up a signal ran, 
 To "R'yl George," "Bombay Castle," "Hope," and 
 
 " Alfred " to go near, 
 All fighting crews at quarters, and to critically scan 
 
 The nature of that Squadron, what it meant by being here. 
 The Frenchmen crept to wind'ard, vague and doubtful how 
 
 to act, 
 The Com'dore flew fresh signals and our China galleons 
 
 tacked, 
 
 But now that Indian afternoon was saddening into night : 
 Your Frenchmen are no cowards, but those Frenchmen 
 
 would not fight. 
 
 Our battle-lanterns through the dark glowed wooingly enough, 
 But Monsieur kept his distance and he also kept his luff. 
 Quoi, Messieurs? fear mere merchantmen, in ships of war, 
 
 ma foy ! 
 
 Not bound to France just yet was Dance, at least with you, 
 Linois ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 The morning sun the French reveal'd, topgallant leaches 
 
 shivering ; 
 
 The reef-points fringed their white cloths like gold hair on 
 beauty's brow.
 
 DANCE'S TEA-FIGHT. 
 
 The early splendour lanced with fire the sea and held it 
 
 quivering ; 
 Our league-long fleet stemmed stately on the enemy's lee 
 
 bow. 
 
 At each gaff-end to wind'ard now the flag of France is flown, 
 And in reply our halliards hoist Britannia's blue and red ; 
 Twas fit the symbol of the great Adventurers should be 
 
 shown, 
 
 For if the white flag fight for us, by the red flag is it fed. 
 Stand to your guns, my hearts of oak ! He's heading to 
 
 attack us I 
 
 He'll find rich freight in plenty if his purpose is to sack us ! 
 Round with the yards ! lee brace let go ! fire-blast him with 
 
 hot spirit 1 
 In England's name we'll never shame the blood we men 
 
 inherit ! 
 The French ships roared with thunder-bolts, red lightnings 
 
 burst and burn, 
 The " Royal George " is their target and some other ships 
 
 astern. 
 
 To fighting Englishmen at sea their life is but a toy ; 
 Our cannon's blast meant France for Dance, not Dance for 
 
 France, Linois. 
 
 V. 
 
 Within an hour the Frenchman ceased to fire and haul'd the 
 
 wind, 
 
 And fled with a feather in his lip instead of in his cap.* 
 He seemed to want for nothing but to leave our fleet 
 
 behind ; 
 'Twas just the same at Moscow and at Waterloo with Nap. 
 
 * " Here she comes with a feather in her lip ! " Old sea-saying.
 
 86 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 On this "Earl Camden's" heights glow with the signal 
 
 "General chase!" 
 Huzza for the Country Wallahs' hearts ! for even they join 
 
 in! 
 
 We sprang about, true livelies ! was it not a glorious race ? 
 And we haul'd and damned and trimmed and crammed 
 
 'twas Dance not France must win ! 
 The Frenchmen swept and wallowed ; we wallowed too, but 
 
 followed ! 
 
 We fired until we tired, but the foe could not be collared. 
 'On! on!" bawled Dance in bunting and each tor'sail 
 
 strained to cracking ; 
 Twas not for want of seamanship, 'twas swiftness that was 
 
 lacking. 
 Our round bows burst in rainbows and our wake spread like 
 
 a fan; 
 
 She was dignified and beautiful, but slow the Indiaman. 
 We press'd on to the evening, then, oh, the keen annoy ! 
 France fled from Dance, Dance gave up France and with her 
 
 M. Linois. 
 
 Now isn't this a rattling yarn about our Merchantmen ? 
 I hope they'll always act at sea well as they acted then. 
 But sow the seed and nurse the Breed ! without Jack Muck's 
 
 Marine 
 
 You're as helpless as a warship with an empty magazine. 
 A day's at hand may come a King to make old France our 
 
 But the Indiaman will then have passed and so will old 
 Linois.
 
 (man 
 
 SOME things there are you can be taught, and some you'll 
 
 never larn; 
 
 As bo'sun of the vessel, why, of course I knows the yarn. 
 The reason why I know is, I was through the whole affair, 
 And the question that I ask is, " Who's the man that wasn't 
 
 there?" 
 
 She was a Yankee privateer, the tallest of her size ; 
 A schooner of St. Malo that had been a British prize ; 
 A Yankee frigate took her in a fight that cost her dear, 
 And a Philadelphia Quaker sent her out as Privateer. 
 
 She was spicy with brass cannon which shot lights like little 
 
 suns; 
 Her yards and booms and lofty masts were fit for a thousand 
 
 tons. 
 She was swift with mighty spread of sail, and named "The 
 
 Puritan " ; 
 And her quarry on the high seas was the British merchant- 
 
 man.
 
 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Why gape you ? 'Cos at Wapping I was hatched, a bum- 
 boat chicken? 
 
 Is it because I'm English that old England I must stick in ? 
 
 I'll fight for her and sarve for her for money and for clothing, 
 
 But, damn me, if I'll starve for her by living at home on 
 nothing ! 
 
 With England were the States at war on questions none 
 
 would shelve; 
 The year it was one thousand and eight hundred and add 
 
 twelve ; 
 
 We were the schooner " Puritan," whose like was woundy rare, 
 Whose crew asked one another, " Who's the man that wasn't 
 
 there ? " 
 
 Our Captain was a long-faced cuss, peak-cheek'd and yellow- 
 skinned ; 
 
 He'd pile bad language through his nose in calm sea or 
 head wind. 
 
 He drank raw rum, his toes were square, he had a beastly 
 manner ; 
 
 He called himself a Yankee though he came from Louisiana. 
 
 The Mate was a slab-sided man from New York City hailing, 
 His very eyeballs squinted oaths, whilst rum too, was his 
 
 failing ; 
 The Second Mate he drank and swore more fearful than the 
 
 others ; 
 And the three men by the crew were called, " the Devil's 
 
 Band of Brothers."
 
 THE MAN WHO WASN*T THERE. 89 
 
 Indeed we were a drunken and a wicked, swearing ship : 
 The " Puritan " ! a Quaker's sneer at the piety o 1 th' lip. 
 
 One day we chased a brigantine, but lost her in the gloom ; 
 The night was full of windy noise, the dark was of the tomb. 
 I was on the foc'sle when a man came forward from the 
 
 wheel : 
 I says, " What are you mumbling ? are you sick or howd' 
 
 yer feel?" 
 
 "Feel?" answers he: "Vy, blindt me daft, who vould not 
 
 it o'ervhelm ? 
 Does you know I'fe been a-standing mit a stranger at der 
 
 helm?" 
 " Are you drunk ? " says I, " A stranger ! ha' yer ne'er a 
 
 saint t'have prayed to ? 
 Did yer speak to him ? " "I did'nt " " Why ? " " Pe- 
 
 cause I vas afraid to." 
 
 "Did yer tell the Captain of 'un?" "Ay." "What said 
 
 he ? sing out higher." 
 " He kick'd me o' the preech und pawl'd, ' You're a tern'd 
 
 infernal liar!'" 
 
 He was a Finn ; we bid him this here crazy yarn to throttle : 
 " You have magic," says us, " in the art of keeping full a 
 
 bottle; 
 But heed us, O you Roosian Finn, if Finnish frauds you 
 
 boast, 
 Well heave you overboard, my son, and that'll end your 
 
 ghost 1 "
 
 go THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 Now three days later, going aft to see to something there, 
 I hears the Mate say to the Captain, " Who's that in your 
 
 chair?" 
 The Captain he lets fly : " My chair ! " he yells with face 
 
 aglow ; 
 The Mate steps to the skylight and with square thumb points 
 
 below. 
 
 The Captain he puts in his head and roars out, " Who's down 
 
 there?" 
 
 No answer : all is silence : so he rushes down the stair. 
 Then up he comes : "Why, fire your soul ! there's no one to 
 
 be seen ! " 
 " I can't help that, sir ; if he's gone I'll take my oath he's 
 
 been. 
 
 " He was sitting in your easy chair, his face was white and 
 
 dead; 
 His pale eyes followed as I passed, and then he turn'd his 
 
 head." 
 The Captain cursed the Chief Mate who in hideous echo 
 
 roarM, 
 The matter of their quarrel could be heard by all on board. 
 
 It made us sweat to think we sarved a ship by ghost 
 
 possessed, 
 Who'd show himself to one alone whilst hidden from the rest. 
 
 Next day the look-out up aloft wherefrom the sea he scanned, 
 Came down the back stay with a run, like an ape, hand over 
 hand.
 
 THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. 91 
 
 The Second Mate an oath raps out, " What's there to make 
 
 you drop ? " 
 " A man that you can see through ; did you guess I was 
 
 gwine to stop?" 
 
 We look'd ; no man was there : but all ne'er doubted it must 
 
 be him : 
 'Twas horrible to feel him there, and yet but one man see 
 
 him ! 
 
 Some twenty sailors saw the man before he came to me ; 
 
 I was leaning o'er the foc'sle rail, my eyes were on the 
 
 sea; 
 'Twas in the second dog-watch and the breeze was brisk 
 
 and steady, 
 Our wake a full league stretched astern, comet-tail'd in 
 
 foaming eddy. 
 
 When chancing to upturn my gaze, upon the larboard 
 
 cathead, 
 A figure sat with marbled eyes and sand- pale hair all 
 
 matted. 
 His face was like a dead man's face that comes to you in 
 
 dreams, 
 The face that looks a human face but is not what it seems. 
 
 I clearly saw the scarlet evening shining through his shape. 
 I thought he wore a doublet slash'd and over it a cape ; 
 There broke a meaning from his eyes, its sense I could not 
 
 tell; 
 Thinks I, as sure you're not from Heaven, you're sartinly 
 
 from Hell.
 
 92 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 "Look! see him there?" I whispers Bill, and Bill turns-to 
 
 and stares. 
 " He's on the larboard cathead, Mate ! blue ruin ! how he 
 
 glares ! " 
 "There's nothing but the cathead there," says Bill, "that I 
 
 can view." 
 " But though he ain't in sight he's there ! " said others of the 
 
 crew. 
 
 It vanished as the damp dies out upon the glass you 
 
 breathe on : 
 Such a sight would make me holy had I been a raging 
 
 heathen. 
 I said my prayers both morn and night, and others too 
 
 were pious; 
 Though the Captain still swore horrible, and called us gory 
 
 liars. 
 
 The last afore the Captain was the drunken Second 
 
 Mate; 
 He was drinking in the cabin when, agin him, where 
 
 he sate 
 
 The Figure stood a-watching as it watched us men afore, 
 On which the Second Mate yells out, and rushes through 
 
 the door. 
 
 He was lunatic with terror, and we hoped he'd break 
 
 his neck, 
 As he sprang and howled in Bedlam note about the rolling 
 
 deck;
 
 THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. 93 
 
 The Captain, full o' curses, work'd his arms just as a mill 
 
 goes, 
 Then " Bosun," roars he, "jump below and clap him in the 
 
 bilboes ! " 
 
 The two Mates now had seen 'un, and all others of the crew : 
 But our fierce swashbuckling Skipper still denied that it 
 
 was true. 
 
 In blue-fire language he declared the reason of our funk 
 Was, 'cos the man as saw the Man was at that moment 
 
 drunk. 
 
 He says, " Why don't He come to me ? because I'm never 
 
 tipsy. 
 
 He knows there's no man soberer afloat upon the deep sea. 
 He's a goblin of the punch-bowl, he's a spectre of the 
 
 noggin ; 
 And smite me ! he that sees him next shall taste a pickled 
 
 flogging ! " 
 
 I was aft one morn, with working gear, for turning in a 
 
 dead-eye, 
 The sky was quick with darting clouds, the hands for stations 
 
 ready : 
 
 Upon our lee-bow hung a light, as a meteor spins in foam ; 
 The cloths of a ship of Europe, bound with studding-sails 
 
 for home. 
 
 We chased with every cracking stitch and swept like a white 
 
 snow squall ; 
 The yeasty race flash 'd, fled and smoked like the foot of a 
 
 waterfall.
 
 94 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 The brass guns shone, our tackling shriek'd, with every gust 
 
 that bowed her 
 More fiercely did she tear the seas whilst piped the musick 
 
 louder. 
 
 The Captain took his long spy-glass and crossed to the lee 
 
 rail, 
 The cream-soft spume fled close beneath : awhile he watched 
 
 the sail. 
 Then turns he for to speak ; but oh ! what sudden change is 
 
 here? 
 His eyeballs strain from out their skull he's petrified by 
 
 fear ! 
 
 The spy-glass falls upon the deck his fingers spread awide, 
 His cross and narrow stare proclaims the figure close beside. 
 "What art thou?" the blasphemer cries in the lock-jaw's 
 
 hollow tone. 
 " Thy face is pale, thine eyes are dead ; who sees thee, stands 
 
 alone ! " 
 
 "Christ's mercy!" scream'd he to the Mate who conned 
 
 beside the wheel, " 
 " Do you see him ? " " No, and nor did you / but that he's 
 
 there I feel!" 
 
 " What art thou ? " yells the Captain : " I can see the 
 
 rigging through thee ! 
 The horizon rules thy shoulder-blades as a ratline whilst I 
 
 view thee.
 
 THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. 95 
 
 Thy face is but a likeness as the ocean paints the moon, 
 Thine hair is tangled like the drown'd, thine eyes are in a 
 swoon ! 
 
 " They're cold they're dead they're jellies like the eyes of 
 
 a thrice-boil'd cod, 
 Avast ! Avaunt ! thou damne'd thing ! whether straight from 
 
 hell or God! . . . 
 What ! gone is it ? why ; being so some brandy ! bear a 
 
 hand! 
 See how I shiver ! fill the glass ! by what am I unmann'd ? " 
 
 " Will he come again ? why, sooner that ne'er reckon it a 
 
 pity- 
 Up helm ! I'll drop this haunted chase ! trim sail for Boston 
 
 City ! " 
 
 At this a general murmur rose : the crew, all told, assembled ; 
 We held a council, many spake; for the Captain's life I 
 
 trembled. 
 Then aft step some : " D'ye mind you jawed of punch-bowl 
 
 and of noggin ? 
 Says you, 'The last that sees the Man is in for a pickled 
 
 flogging.' 
 
 "Now which'll it be, will you keep at sea and give us a 
 
 chance of booty, 
 Or will you head for Boston and be flogged in your name 
 
 of duty?" 
 He understood and scowled at them : he knew them mostly 
 
 devils. 
 44 Grant time to think; I need to drink to choose 'twixt two 
 
 such evils."
 
 96 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 He goes below and locks his door, mad horror in him reigns : 
 'Twas eight bells second dog-watch when the wretch blew 
 out his brains. 
 
 Here ends my song : for what is left I doubt if you would 
 
 care : 
 Yet let me ask this question : " Who's the man that wasn't 
 
 there ? "* 
 
 * "Those of his crew who were taken alive told a story which may 
 appear a little incredible ; however, we think it will not be fair to omit 
 it, since we had it from their own Mouths. That once upon a Cruize they 
 found out, that they had a Man on board more than their Crew ; such a 
 one was seen several days among them, sometimes below, and sometimes 
 on Deck, yet no man in the Ship could give an Account who he was, or 
 from whence he came ; but that he disappeared a little before they were 
 cast away in their great ship, but, it seems, they verily believed it was the 
 Devil." Capt. Charles Johnson's "A General History of the Pyrates " 
 (1726), 4th Ed., Vol. I., p. 89.
 
 FROM Plymouth Bay we sail'd away afore a cheerful gale, 
 
 Our quarry was the " San Paulo," a galleon of old Spain. 
 We knew if we fell in with him our cannon would not fail 
 And a million pieces of eight, my boys ! 
 And silver tons in weight, my joys ! 
 In crucifix and altar-piece would prove our noble gain. 
 Five hundred stood upon the Hoe to watch us sailing out, 
 And whilst our white sails grew aloft the gallants gave a 
 
 shout, 
 And waved their hats and bawled again and rent the wind 
 
 with cheers, 
 
 Huzza for the galleon " San Paulo " and the Plymouth Buc- 
 caneers ! 
 
 II. 
 
 From Acapulco was he bound to come around the Horn ; 
 And when we sailed the galleon was three thousand 
 
 leagues away ; 
 
 But steering large we swept in foam, and on the morrow's 
 morn, 
 
 We filled our cans with sack, my boys ! 
 And drank to Spanish Jack, my joys ! 
 For the Scilly Isles were far astern and so was Plymouth 
 Bay. 
 
 G
 
 98 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 We swore by peteraro, by swivel and by saker, 
 
 That if we came across " Saint Paul " we'd founder or we'd 
 
 take her. 
 We'd hunt for her and find her tho' we chased the sea for 
 
 years, 
 For fiery is the spirit of the Plymouth Buccaneers. 
 
 III. 
 
 With roaring bows and shrieking shrouds we thundered to 
 
 the line, 
 'Twas Maypole on the village green in merry England 
 
 then : 
 
 We cut th' Equator May-day, Anno sixteen eighty nine. 
 Says lion-hearted Rice, " My boys. 
 He'll be among the ice, my joys, 
 ('Twas naught but ' booty and the Don " at sea among us 
 
 men) 
 "When we are stemming southward where the coast stands 
 
 white and bold ; 
 They have stout hearts in the Tropiques, but they're cowards 
 
 in the cold. 
 
 But what'll be their shivers and what'll be their fears 
 When they find the men who lust for 'em are Plymouth 
 Buccaneers ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 We were northward of the mountain bergs by ten degrees at 
 
 least, 
 
 When daylight flash'd the ocean into lines of brilliant 
 blue
 
 THE PLYMOUTH BUCCANEERS. 99 
 
 Twas Master Rice, our Skipper, who stood blinking at the 
 east, 
 
 Roars out, " O Jesus ! see, my boys ! 
 He's dead upon our lee, ray joys ! 
 Hang out your ancient ! cheerly load ! we'll ply him fast 
 
 and true ! 
 
 How like a lordly castle sits the Don upon the sea ! 
 If there's room enough for Spaniards there is room enough 
 
 for me. 
 
 He marks us and he makes a leg as slowly off he sheers ; 
 No, good my lord ! your treasure is the Plymouth Buc- 
 caneers." 
 
 V. 
 
 " Ease off your sheets the mizzon furl ! a long chase hath 
 
 begun ! 
 Prepare your stink-pots, hand-grenades, stack store of 
 
 pikes at hand ! 
 
 We'll have him in some hour to-day twixt morn and evening 
 sun. 
 
 He's a thousand tons all told, my boys ! 
 There's millions in his hold, my joys ! 
 By thrice two hundred soldiers, priests and sailors is he 
 
 manned. 
 
 His cannon peer like heads of snakes from four score yawn- 
 ing ports, 
 He's armed with minions, culverins and murtherers of all 
 
 sorts. 
 But what say ye, my Plymouth hearts ? do they arouse your 
 
 fears? 
 
 We have no saints to pray to, but we're Plymouth Buc- 
 caneers.
 
 ioo THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Now pitch a shot and try the range we're closing him 
 
 amain ! 
 He answers ! and the ill-sped ball squirts up the yeast 
 
 abreast ! 
 
 Now luff and ply him fierce as hail and fast as thunder-rain 
 His flag droops from its peak, my boys ! 
 It's eloquence is weak, my joys ! 
 Is weak is spent ! O goodly shot, the youngest and the 
 
 best! 
 And now he rounds in foam of wrath to bring his guns to 
 
 bear; 
 So ! keep your luff, O courteous Don, and hold it, if you 
 
 dare ! 
 You're big, we're small ; we're short, you're tall ; you'll vex 
 
 us not by sneers ; 
 Our King is not a Spaniard, and we're Plymouth Buccaneers." 
 
 VII. 
 
 We swept right down upon the Don and his guns their red 
 
 flames spout; 
 
 The sun was not yet near his bed when we did range along- 
 side; 
 
 His face was dim behind the smoke as though his light was 
 out; 
 
 Our blood streamed black on deck, my boys ! 
 But little did we reck, my joys ! 
 Our hellish blasts had cleared the heads that showed above 
 
 his strong side. 
 
 We heard amid the pauses in the roaring of the guns, 
 The priests a-singing Aves and the chanting of some <nuns.
 
 THE PLYMOUTH BUCCANEERS. 101 
 
 We pitied those sleek fathers and were sorrier for their dears, 
 But we'd come to load with booty and were Plymouth 
 Buccaneers. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 At five o' th' clock we grappled him 'twas yard-arm and 
 
 yard-arm. 
 His scuppers gush'd in crimson on our low tormented 
 
 deck; 
 Our belching stink-pots drove his people forward out of 
 
 harm 
 
 Away into close quarters, boys ! 
 And sheltered thus, they fought us, joys ! 
 But our boarders charged in wrathfulness that could not 
 
 suffer check. 
 We sprang aloft and from the yards dropped, fiend-like, on 
 
 the Spaniard, 
 
 Our topsail yard did parallel that galleon's mighty mainyard ; 
 And ere the sun had sunk his shield we'd hurled below with 
 
 cheers 
 The last of those who durst oppose the Plymouth Buccaneers. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Captain of the galleon and four Lieutenants too, 
 
 Had died like men by pike and ball, and, ere we dredged 
 
 the hold, 
 
 We buried them with musketry, and others of that crew 
 Who perish'd in that fight, my boys ! 
 That lasted till the night, my joys ! 
 
 We funeral'd with our Plymouth hearts who number'd ten all 
 told.
 
 103 THE TURNPIKE SAILOR. 
 
 But under hatches under guard, we held the well and 
 
 wounded, 
 And piled our hold with treasure till the cock his clarion 
 
 sounded. 
 The moonlight helped our vision, for the battle-smoke soon 
 
 clears, 
 And by the morn the millions were the Plymouth Buccaneers' ! 
 
 X. 
 
 When deep our little spunky ship lay rolling in the sea, 
 We lifted all the hatches of the castle-grand galloon ; 
 And calling up her sick and well, we said, " Senors, you're 
 free 
 
 For Mexico again, my boys ! 
 To load afresh for Spain, my joys ! 
 
 Ye will not meet us here, Oh no, for many a coming moon." 
 And thrice we swell'd our tough throats in the cheers we felt 
 
 a duty, 
 For our ship one, for the Don one, and the heartiest for our 
 
 booty. 
 Then trim the yards, we fill our cans, for home the helmsman 
 
 steers, 
 And so a health unto our King and the Plymouth Buccaneers. 
 
 THE END.
 
 JARROUO & SONS, LTD., 
 
 PRINTERS, 
 THE EMPIRE PRESS, NORWICH. 
 
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