The Project Gutenberg eBook of Salt-water Ballads, by John Masefield.

SALT-WATER BALLADS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

SALT-WATER
BALLADS

A CONSECRATION

THE YARN OF THE ‘LOCH ACHRAY’

The ‘Loch Achray’ was a clipper tall
With seven-and-twenty hands in all.
Twenty to hand and reef and haul,
A skipper to sail and mates to bawl
‘Tally on to the tackle-fall,
Heave now ’n’ start her, heave ’n’ pawl!’
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

Her crew were shipped and they said ‘Farewell,
So-long, my Tottie, my lovely gell;
We sail to-day if we fetch to hell,
It’s time we tackled the wheel a spell.’
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

The dockside loafers talked on the quay
The day that she towed down to sea:{4}
‘Lord, what a handsome ship she be!
Cheer her, sonny boys, three times three!’
And the dockside loafers gave her a shout
As the red-funnelled tug-boat towed her out;
They gave her a cheer as the custom is,
And the crew yelled ‘Take our loves to Liz—
Three cheers, bullies, for old Pier Head
’N’ the bloody stay-at-homes!’ they said.
Hear the yarn of a sailor
An old yarn learned at sea.

In the grey of the coming on of night
She dropped the tug at the Tuskar Light,
’N’ the topsails went to the topmast head
To a chorus that fairly awoke the dead.
She trimmed her yards and slanted South
With her royals set and a bone in her mouth.
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

She crossed the Line and all went well,
They ate, they slept, and they struck the bell{5}
And I give you a gospel truth when I state
The crowd didn’t find any fault with the Mate,
But one night off the River Plate.
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

It freshened up till it blew like thunder
And burrowed her deep, lee-scuppers under.
The old man said, ‘I mean to hang on
Till her canvas busts or her sticks are gone’—
Which the blushing looney did, till at last
Overboard went her mizzen-mast.
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

Then a fierce squall struck the ‘Loch Achray’
And bowed her down to her water-way;
Her main-shrouds gave and her forestay,
And a green sea carried her wheel away;
Ere the watch below had time to dress
She was cluttered up in a blushing mess.
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.{6}

She couldn’t lay-to nor yet pay-off,
And she got swept clean in the bloody trough;
Her masts were gone, and afore you knowed
She filled by the head and down she goed.
Her crew made seven-and-twenty dishes
For the big jack-sharks and the little fishes,
And over their bones the water swishes.
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

The wives and girls they watch in the rain
For a ship as won’t come home again.
‘I reckon it’s them head-winds,’ they say,
‘She’ll be home to-morrow, if not to-day.
I’ll just nip home ’n’ I’ll air the sheets
’N’ buy the fixins ’n’ cook the meats
As my man likes ’n’ as my man eats.’

So home they goes by the windy streets,
Thinking their men are homeward bound
With anchors hungry for English ground,
And the bloody fun of it is, they’re drowned!
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.

SING A SONG O’ SHIPWRECK

He lolled on a bollard, a sun-burned son of the sea,
With ear-rings of brass and a jumper of dungaree,
‘ ’N’ many a queer lash-up have I seen,’ says he.

‘But the toughest hooray o’ the racket,’ he says, ‘I’ll be sworn,
’N’ the roughest traverse I worked since the day I was born,
Was a packet o’ Sailor’s Delight as I scoffed in the seas o’ the Horn.

‘All day long in the calm she had rolled to the swell,
Rolling through fifty degrees till she clattered her bell;
’N’ then came snow, ’n’ a squall, ’n’ a wind was colder ’n hell.{8}

‘It blew like the Bull of Barney, a beast of a breeze,
’N’ over the rail come the cold green lollopin’ seas,
’N’ she went ashore at the dawn on the Ramirez.

‘She was settlin’ down by the stern when I got to the deck,
Her waist was a smother o’ sea as was up to your neck,
’N’ her masts were gone, ’n’ her rails, ’n’ she was a wreck.

‘We rigged up a tackle, a purchase, a sort of a shift,
To hoist the boats off o’ the deck-house and get them adrift,
When her stern gives a sickenin’ settle, her bows give a lift,

‘ ’N’ comes a crash of green water as sets me afloat
With freezing fingers clutching the keel of a boat—
The bottom-up whaler—’n’ that was the juice of a note.{9}

‘Well, I clambers acrost o’ the keel ’n’ I gets me secured,
When I sees a face in the white o’ the smother to looard,
So I gives ’im a ’and, ’n’ be shot if it wasn’t the stooard!

‘So he climbs up forrard o’ me, ’n’ “thanky,” a’ says,
’N’ we sits ’n’ shivers ’n’ freeze to the bone wi’ the sprays,
’N’ I sings “Abel Brown,” ’n’ the stooard he prays.

‘Wi’ never a dollop to sup nor a morsel to bite,
The lips of us blue with the cold ’n’ the heads of us light,
Adrift in a Cape Horn sea for a day ’n’ a night.

‘ ’N’ then the stooard goes dotty ’n’ puts a tune to his lip,
’N’ moans about Love like a dern old hen wi’ the pip—
(I sets no store upon stooards—they ain’t no use on a ship).{10}

‘ ’N’ “mother,” the looney cackles, “come ’n’ put Willy to bed!”
So I says “Dry up, or I’ll fetch you a crack o’ the head”;
“The kettle’s a-bilin’,” he answers, “ ’n’ I’ll go butter the bread.”

‘ ’N’ he falls to singin’ some slush about clinkin’ a can,
’N’ at last he dies, so he does, ’n’ I tells you, Jan,
I was glad when he did, for he weren’t no fun for a man.

‘So he falls forrard, he does, ’n’ he closes his eye,
’N’ quiet he lays ’n’ quiet I leaves him lie,
’N’ I was alone with his corp, ’n’ the cold green sea and the sky.

‘ ’N’ then I dithers, I guess, for the next as I knew
Was the voice of a mate as was sayin’ to one of the crew,
“Easy, my son, wi’ the brandy, be shot if he ain’t comin’-to!” ’

BURIAL PARTY

‘He’s deader ’n nails,’ the fo’c’s’le said, ‘ ’n’ gone to his long sleep’;
‘ ’N’ about his corp,’ said Tom to Dan, ‘d’ye think his corp’ll keep
Till the day’s done, ’n’ the work’s through, ’n’ the ebb’s upon the neap?’

‘He’s deader ’n nails,’ said Dan to Tom, ‘ ’n’ I wish his sperrit j’y;
He spat straight ’n’ he steered true, but listen to me, say I,
Take ’n’ cover ’n’ bury him now, ’n’ I’ll take ’n’ tell you why.

‘It’s a rummy rig of a guffy’s yarn, ’n’ the juice of a rummy note,
But if you buries a corp at night, it takes ’n’ keeps afloat,{12}
For its bloody soul’s afraid o’ the dark ’n’ sticks within the throat.

‘ ’N’ all the night till the grey o’ the dawn the dead ’un has to swim
With a blue ’n’ beastly Will o’ the Wisp a-burnin’ over him,
With a herring, maybe, a-scoffin’ a toe or a shark a-chewin’ a limb.

‘ ’N’ all the night the shiverin’ corp it has to swim the sea,
With its shudderin’ soul inside the throat (where a soul’s no right to be),
Till the sky’s grey ’n’ the dawn’s clear, ’n’ then the sperrit’s free.

‘Now Joe was a man was right as rain. I’m sort of sore for Joe,
’N’ if we bury him durin’ the day, his soul can take ’n’ go;
So we’ll dump his corp when the bell strikes ’n’ we can get below.{13}

‘I’d fairly hate for him to swim in a blue ’n’ beastly light,
With his shudderin’ soul inside of him a-feelin’ the fishes bite,
So over he goes at noon, say I, ’n’ he shall sleep to-night.’{14}

BILL

FEVER SHIP

FEVER-CHILLS

ONE OF THE BO’SUN’S YARNS

Loafin’ around in Sailor Town, a-bluin’ o’ my advance,
I met a derelict donkeyman who led me a merry dance,
Till he landed me ’n’ bleached me fair in the bar of a rum-saloon,
’N’ there he spun me a juice of a yarn to this-yer brand of tune.

‘It’s a solemn gospel, mate,’ he says, ‘but a man as ships aboard
A steamer-tramp, he gets his whack of the wonders of the Lord—
Such as roaches crawlin’ over his bunk, ’n’ snakes inside his bread,
And work by night and work by day enough to strike him dead.{20}

‘But that there’s by the way,’ says he; ‘the yarn I’m goin’ to spin
Is about myself ’n’ the life I led in the last ship I was in,
The “Esmeralda,” casual tramp, from Hull towards the Hook,
Wi’ one o’ the brand o’ Cain for mate ’n’ a human mistake for cook.

‘We’d a week or so of dippin’ around in a wind from outer hell,
With a fathom or more of broken sea at large in the forrard well,
Till our boats were bashed and bust and broke and gone to Davy Jones,
’N’ then come white Atlantic fog as chilled us to the bones.

‘We slowed her down and started the horn and watch and watch about,
We froze the marrow in all our bones a-keepin’ a good look-out,{21}
’N’ the ninth night out, in the middle watch, I woke from a pleasant dream,
With the smash of a steamer ramming our plates a point abaft the beam.

‘ ’Twas cold and dark when I fetched the deck, dirty ’n’ cold ’n’ thick,
’N’ there was a feel in the way she rode as fairly turned me sick;—
She was settlin’, listin’ quickly down, ’n’ I heard the mates a-cursin’,
’N’ I heard the wash ’n’ the grumble-grunt of a steamer’s screws reversin’.

‘She was leavin’ us, mate, to sink or swim, ’n’ the words we took ’n’ said
They turned the port-light grassy-green ’n’ the starboard rosy-red.
We give her a hot perpetual taste of the singeing curse of Cain,
As we heard her back ’n’ clear the wreck ’n’ off to her course again.{22}

‘Then the mate came dancin’ on to the scene, ’n’ he says, “Now quit yer chin,
Or I’ll smash yer skulls, so help me James, ’n’ let some wisdom in.
Ye dodderin’ scum o’ the slums,” he says, “are ye drunk or blazin’ daft?
If ye wish to save yer sickly hides, ye’d best contrive a raft.”

‘So he spoke us fair and turned us to, ’n’ we wrought wi’ tooth and nail
Wi’ scantling, casks, ’n’ coops ’n’ ropes, ’n’ boiler-plates ’n’ sail,
’N’ all the while it were dark ’n’ cold ’n’ dirty as it could be,
’N’ she was soggy ’n’ settlin’ down to a berth beneath the sea.

‘Soggy she grew, ’n’ she didn’t lift, ’n’ she listed more ’n’ more,
Till her bell struck ’n’ her boiler-pipes began to wheeze ’n’ snore;{23}
She settled, settled, listed, heeled, ’n’ then may I be cust,
If her sneezin’, wheezin’ boiler-pipes did not begin to bust!

‘ ’N’ then the stars began to shine, ’n’ the birds began to sing,
’N’ the next I knowed I was bandaged up ’n’ my arm were in a sling,
’N’ a swab in uniform were there, ’n’ “Well,” says he, “ ’n’ how
Are yer arms, ’n’ legs, ’n’ liver, ’n’ lungs, ’n’ bones a-feelin’ now?”

“Where am I?” says I, ’n’ he says, says he, a-cantin’ to the roll,
“You’re aboard the R.M.S. ‘Marie’ in the after Glory-Hole,
’N’ you’ve had a shave, if you wish to know, from the port o’ Kingdom Come.
Drink this,” he says, ’n’ I takes ’n’ drinks, ’n’ s’elp me, it was rum!{24}

‘Seven survivors seen ’n’ saved of the “Esmeralda’s” crowd,
Taken aboard the sweet “Marie” ’n’ bunked ’n’ treated proud,
’N’ D.B.S.’d to Mersey Docks (’n’ a joyful trip we made),
’N’ there the skipper were given a purse by a grateful Board of Trade.

‘That’s the end o’ the yarn,’ he says, ’n’ he takes ’n’ wipes his lips,
Them’s the works o’ the Lord you sees in steam ’n’ sailin’ ships,—
Rocks ’n’ fogs ’n’ shatterin’ seas ’n’ breakers right ahead,
’N’ work o’ nights ’n’ work o’ days enough to strike you dead.’{25}

HELL’S PAVEMENT

SEA-CHANGE

HARBOUR-BAR

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

ONE OF WALLY’S YARNS

A VALEDICTION (LIVERPOOL DOCKS)

A NIGHT AT DAGO TOM’S

‘PORT OF MANY SHIPS’

CAPE HORN GOSPEL—I

CAPE HORN GOSPEL—II

Jake was a dirty Dago lad, an’ he gave the skipper chin,
An’ the skipper up an’ took him a crack with an iron belaying-pin
Which stiffened him out a rusty corp, as pretty as you could wish,
An’ then we shovelled him up in a sack an’ dumped him to the fish.
That was jest arter we’d got sail on her.

Josey slipped from the tops’l-yard an’ bust his bloody back
(Which corned from playing the giddy goat an’ leavin’ go the jack);
We lashed his chips in clouts of sail an’ ballasted him with stones,
‘The Lord hath taken away,’ we says, an’ we give him to Davy Jones.
An’ that was afore we were up with the Line.{46}

Joe were chippin’ a rusty plate a-squattin’ upon the deck,
An’ all the watch he had the sun a-singein’ him on the neck,
An’ forrard he falls at last, he does, an’ he lets his mallet go,
Dead as a nail with a calenture, an’ that was the end of Joe.
An’ that was just afore we made the Plate.

All o’ the rest were sailor-men, an’ it come to rain an’ squall,
An’ then it was halliards, sheets, an ’tacks ‘clue up, an’ let go all.’
We snugged her down an’ hove her to, an’ the old contrairy cuss
Started a plate, an’ settled an’ sank, an’ that was the end of us.

We slopped around on coops an’ planks in the cold an’ in the dark,
An’ Bill were drowned, an’ Tom were ate by a swine of a cruel shark,{47}
An’ a mail-boat reskied Harry an’ I (which comed of pious prayers),
Which brings me here a-kickin’ my heels in the port of Buenos Ayres.

I’m bound for home in the ‘Oronook,’ in a suit of looted duds,
A D.B.S. a-earnin’ a stake by helpin’ peelin’ spuds,
An’ if ever I fetch to Prince’s Stage an’ sets my feet ashore,
You bet your hide that there I stay, an’ follers the sea no more.

MOTHER CAREY

(AS TOLD ME BY THE BO’SUN)

EVENING—REGATTA DAY

A VALEDICTION

A PIER-HEAD CHORUS

THE GOLDEN CITY OF ST. MARY

TRADE WINDS

SEA-FEVER

A WANDERER’S SONG

CARDIGAN BAY

CHRISTMAS EVE AT SEA

A BALLAD OF CAPE ST. VINCENT

THE TARRY BUCCANEER

A BALLAD OF JOHN SILVER

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It’s a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.{72}

Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people’s brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.

O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken-coop;
Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.

O! the fiddle on the fo’c’s’le, and the slapping naked soles,
And the genial ‘Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!’{73}
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.

Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
All have since been put a stop-to by the naughty Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest.

LYRICS FROM ‘THE BUCCANEER’

III

D’AVALOS’ PRAYER

THE WEST WIND

THE GALLEY-ROWERS

SORROW OF MYDATH

VAGABOND

VISION

SPUNYARN

THE DEAD KNIGHT

PERSONAL

ON MALVERN HILL

TEWKESBURY ROAD

ON EASTNOR KNOLL

‘REST HER SOUL, SHE’S DEAD’

‘ALL YE THAT PASS BY’

IN MEMORY OF A. P. R.

TO-MORROW

CAVALIER

A SONG AT PARTING

GLOSSARY

Abaft the beam.—That half of a ship included between her amidship section and the taffrail. (For ‘taffrail,’ see below.)

Abel Brown.—An unquotable sea-song.

Advance-note.—A note for one month’s wages issued to sailors on their signing a ship’s articles.

Belaying-pins.—Bars of iron or hard wood to which running rigging may be secured or belayed. Belaying-pins, from their handiness and peculiar club-shape, are sometimes used as bludgeons.

Bloody.—An intensive derived from the substantive ‘blood,’ a name applied to the Bucks, Scowrers, and Mohocks of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Blue Peter.—A blue and white flag hoisted at the fore-trucks of ships about to sail.

Bollard.—From bōl or bole, the round trunk of a tree. A phallic or ‘sparklet’-shaped ornament of the dockside, of assistance to mariners in warping into or out of dock.

Bonded Jacky.—Negro-head tobacco or sweet cake.

Bull of Barney.—A beast mentioned in an unquotable sea-proverb.

Bumpkin.—An iron bar (projecting out-board from the ship’s side) to which the lower and topsail brace blocks are sometimes hooked.{110}

Cape Horn fever.—The illness proper to malingerers.

Catted.—Said of an anchor when weighed and secured to the ‘cat-head.’

Chanty.—A song sung to lighten labour at the capstan sheets, and halliards. The soloist is known as the chanty-man, and is usually a person of some authority in the fo’c’s’le. Many chanties are of great beauty and extreme antiquity.

Clipper-bow.—A bow of delicate curves and lines.

Clout.—A rag or cloth. Also a blow:—‘I fetched him a clout i’ the lug.’

Crimp.—A sort of scoundrelly land-shark preying upon sailors.

D.B.S.—Distressed British Sailor. A term applied to those who are invalided home from foreign ports.

Dungaree.—A cheap, rough thin cloth (generally blue or brown), woven, I am told, of coco-nut fibre.

Forward or Forrard.—Towards the bows.

Fo’c’s’le (Forecastle).—The deck-house or living-room of the crew. The word is often used to indicate the crew, or those members of it described by passengers as the ‘common sailors.’

Fore-stay.—A powerful wire rope supporting the fore-mast forward.

Gaskets.—Ropes or plaited lines used to secure the sails in furling.

Goneys.—Albatrosses.

Guffy.—A marine or jolly.

Gullies.—Sea-gulls, Cape Horn pigeons, etc.{111}

Heave and pawl.—A cry of encouragement at the capstan.

Hooker.—A periphrasis for ship, I suppose from a ship’s carrying hooks or anchors.

Jack or Jackstay.—A slender iron rail running along the upper portions of the yards in some ships.

Leeward.—Pronounced ‘looard.’ That quarter to which the wind blows.

Mainsail haul.—An order in tacking ship bidding ‘swing the mainyards.’ To loot, steal, or ‘acquire.’

Main-shrouds.—Ropes, usually wire, supporting lateral strains upon the mainmast.

Mollies.—Molly-hawks, or Fulmar petrels. Wide-winged dusky sea-fowls, common in high latitudes, oily to taste, gluttonous. Great fishers and garbage-eaters.

Port Mahon Baboon, or Port Mahon Soger.—I have been unable to discover either the origin of these insulting epithets or the reasons for the peculiar bitterness with which they sting the marine recipient. They are older than Dana (circa 1840).

An old merchant sailor, now dead, once told me that Port Mahon was that godless city from which the Ark set sail, in which case the name may have some traditional connection with that evil ‘Mahoun’ or ‘Mahu,’ prince of darkness, mentioned by Shakespeare and some of our older poets.

The real Port Mahon, a fine harbour in Minorca,{112} was taken by the French, from Admiral Byng, in the year 1756.

I think that the phrases originated at the time of Byng’s consequent trial and execution.

Purchase.—See ‘Tackle.’

Quidding.—Tobacco-chewing.

Sails.—The sail-maker.

Santa Cruz.—A brand of rum.

Scantling.—Planks.

Soger.—A laggard, malingerer, or hang-back. To loaf or skulk or work Tom Cox’s Traverse.

Spunyarn.—A three-strand line spun out of old rope-yarns knotted together. Most sailing-ships carry a spunyarn winch, and the spinning of such yarn is a favourite occupation in fine weather.

Stirrup.—A short rope supporting the foot-rope on which the sailors stand when aloft on the yards.

Tack.—To stay or ’bout ship. A reach to windward. The weather lower corner of a course.

Tackle.—Pronounced taykle. A combination of pulleys for obtaining of artificial power.

Taffrail.—The rail or bulwark round the sternmost end of a ship’s poop or after-deck.

Trick.—The ordinary two-hour spell at the wheel or on the look-out.

Windward or Weather.—That quarter from which the wind blows.

“Neither in the design nor in the telling did or could ‘Enoch Arden’ come near the artistic truth of ‘The Daffodil Fields’.”—Sir Quiller-Couch, Cambridge University.

As a sailor before the mast Masefield has traveled the world over. Many of the tales in this volume are his own experiences written with the same dramatic fidelity displayed in “Dauber.”

A play such as only the author of “Nan” could have written. Tense in situation and impressive in its poetry it conveys Masefield’s genius in the handling of the dramatic form.

JOHN MASEFIELD’S

The Everlasting Mercy, and The
Widow in the Bye Street

Cloth, $1.25 net; postpaid, $1.38

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

“The Everlasting Mercy” was awarded the Edward de Polignac prize of $500 by the Royal Society of Literature for the best imaginative work of the year.”

“John Masefield is the man of the hour, and the man of to-morrow too, in poetry and in the playwriting craft.”—John Galsworthy.

“—recreates a wholly new drama of existence.”—William Stanley Braithwaite, N. Y. Times.

“Mr. Masefield comes like a flash of light across contemporary English poetry, and he trails glory where his imaginations reveals the substances of life. The improbable has been accomplished by Mr. Masefield; he has made poetry out of the very material that has refused to yield it for almost a score of years. It has only yielded it with a passion of Keats, and shaped it with the imagination of Coleridge.”—Boston Evening Transcript.

“Originality, force, distinction, and deep knowledge of the human heart.”—Chicago Record-Herald.

“A vigor and sincerity rare in modern English literature.”—The Independent.

“If Mr. Masefield has occasionally appeared to touch a reminiscent chord with George Meredith, it is merely an example of his good taste and the sameness of big themes.”—George Middleton in La Follette’s Magazine.

JOHN MASEFIELD’S

The Story of a Round-House
and other Poems

Cloth, 12mo, $1.30 net; postpaid, $1.43

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

“John Masefield has produced the finest literature of the year.”—J. W. Barrie.

“John Masefield is the most interesting poetic personality of the day.”—The Continent.

“Ah! the story of that rounding the Horn! Never in prose has the sea been so tremendously described.”—Chicago Evening Post.

“Masefield’s new book attracts the widest attention from those who in any degree are interested in the quality of present-day literature.”—Boston Transcript.

“A genuine sailor and a genuine poet are a rare combination; they have produced a rare poem of the sea, which has made Mr. Masefield’s position in literature secure beyond the reach of caviling.”—Everybody’s Magazine.

“There is strength about everything Masefield writes that compels the feeling that he has an inward eye on which he draws to shape new films of old pictures. In these pictures is freshness combined with power, which form the keynotes of his poetry.”—N. Y. Globe.

“A Millet in word-painting, who writes with a terrible simplicity, is Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, born in Hexham, England, in 1878, of whom Canon Cheyne wrote: ‘A new poet of the people has risen up among us.’ The story of a soul is written as plainly in ‘Daily Bread’ as in ‘The Divine Comedy’ and in ‘Paradise Lost.’ ”—The Outlook.

“In ‘Fires’ as in ‘Daily Bread,’ the fundamental note is human sympathy with the whole of life. Impressive as these dramas are, it is in their cumulative effect that they are chiefly powerful.”—Atlantic Monthly.

“Mr. Gibson is a genuine singer of his own day and turns into appealing harmony the world’s harshly jarring notes of poverty and pain.”—The Outlook.

This book introduces another poet of promise to the verse-lovers of this country. It is of interest to learn that Mr. Helston, who for several years was an operative mechanic in electrical works, has created a remarkable impression in England where much is expected of him. This volume, characterized by verse of rare beauty, presents his most representative work, ranging from the long descriptive title-poem to shorter lyrics.

“His is perhaps the most confident of the prophecies of our new poets for he has seen most clearly the poetry in the new life. His song is full of the spirit of youth and hope.... It is the song that the new century needs. His verse is strong and flexible and has an ease, a naturalness, a rhythm that is rare in young poets. In many of his shorter lyrics he recalls Heine.”—Boston Transcript.

“For some years the poems of Miss Davis have attracted wide attention in the best periodicals. That note of wistful mysticism which shimmers in almost every line gives her art a distinction that is bound to make its appeal. In this first book—where every verse is significant—Miss Davis has achieved very beautiful and serious poetry.”—Boston Transcript.

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	PAGE
A CONSECRATION
Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers.	1
THE YARN OF THE ‘LOCH ACHRAY’
The ‘Loch Achray’ was a clipper tall.	3
SING A SONG O’ SHIPWRECK
He lolled on a bollard, a sun-burned son of the sea	7
BURIAL PARTY
‘He’s deader ’n nails,’ the fo’c’s’le said, ‘ ’n’ gone to his long sleep’	11
BILL
He lay dead on the cluttered deck and stared at the cold skies	14
FEVER SHIP
There’ll be no weepin gells ashore when our ship sails	15
FEVER-CHILLS
He tottered out of the alleyway with cheeks the colour of paste	17
ONE OF THE BO’SUN’S YARNS
Loafin’ around in Sailor Town, a-bluin’ o’ my advance	19
HELLS PAVEMENT
‘When I’m discharged in Liverpool ’n’ draws my bit o’ pay’	25
SEA-CHANGE
‘Goneys an’ gullies an’ all o’ the birds o’ the sea’	27
HARBOUR-BAR
All in the feathered palm-tree tops the bright green parrots screech	29
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife	31
ONE OF WALLY’S YARNS
The watch was up on the topsail-yard a-making fast the sail	33
A VALEDITION (LIVERPOOL DOCKS)
Is there anything as I can do ashore for you	35
A NIGHT AT DAGO TOM’S
Oh yesterday, I t’ink it was, while cruisin’ down the street	38
‘PORT OF MANY SHIPS’
‘It’s a sunny pleasant anchorage, is Kingdom Come’	40
CAPE HORN GOSPEL—I
‘I was in a hooker once,’ said Karlssen	42
CAPE HORN GOSPEL—II
Jake was a dirty Dago lad, an’ he gave the skipper chin	45
MOTHER CAREY
Mother Carey? She’s the mother o’ the witches	48
EVENING—REGATTA DAY
Your nose is a red jelly, your mouth’s a toothless wreck	50
A VALEDITION
We’re bound for blue water where the great winds blow	52
A PIER-HEAD CHORUS
Oh, I’ll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread	54
THE GOLDEN CITY OF ST. MARY
Out beyond the sunset, could I but find the way	56
TRADE WINDS
In the harbour, in the island, in the Spanish Seas	58
SEA-FEVER
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky	59
A WANDERER’S SONG
A wind’s in the heart o’ me, a fire’s in my heels	61
CARDIGAN BAY
Clean, green, windy billows notching out the sky	63
A wind is rustling ‘south and soft’	64
CHRISTMAS EVE AT SEA
A BALLAD OF CAPE ST. VINCENT
‘Now, Bill, ain’t it prime to be a-sailin’	66
THE TARRY BUCCANEER
I’m going to be a pirate with a bright brass pivot-gun	68
A BALLAD OF JOHN SILVER
We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull	71
LYRICS FROM ‘THE BUCCANEER’
I.—We are far from sight of the harbour lights	74
II.—There’s a sea-way somewhere where all day long	75
III.—The toppling rollers at the harbour mouth	76
D’AVALOS’ PRAYER
When the last sea is sailed and the last shallow charted	77
THE WEST WIND
It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries	79
THE GALLEY-ROWERS
Staggering over the running combers	82
SORROW OF MYDATH
Weary the cry of the wind is, weary the sea	84
VAGABOND
Dunno a heap about the what an’ why	85
VISION
I have drunken the red wine and flung the dice	86
SPUNYARN
Spunyarn, spunyarn, with one to turn the crank	88
THE DEAD KNIGHT
The cleanly rush of the mountain air	89
PERSONAL
Tramping at night in the cold and wet, I passed the lighted inn	91
ON MALVERN HILL
A wind is brushing down the clover	92
TEWKESBURY ROAD
It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where	94
ON EATNOR KNOLL
Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are	96
‘REST HER SOUL, SHE’S DEAD!’
She has done with the sea’s sorrow and the world’s way	97
‘ALL YE THAT PASS BY’
On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street	99
IN MEMORY OF A. P. R.
Once in the windy wintry weather	101
TO-MORROW
Oh yesterday the cutting edge drank thirstily and deep	102
CAVALIER
All the merry kettle-drums are thudding into rhyme	104
A SONG AT PARTING
The tick of the blood is settling slow, my heart will soon be still	106
GLOSSARY	109