The Burial of the Dane 1627 It is but a Danish sailor, Rugged of front and form; A common son of the forecastle, His name, and the strand he hailed from Still, as he lay there dying, Aye, on deck, by the foremast! But watch and lookout are done; The Union Jack laid o'er him, Slow the ponderous engine, Stand in order, and listen To the holiest page of prayer! Let every foot be quiet, The soft trade-wind is lifting Our captain reads the service, (A little spray on his cheeks) The grand old words of burial, And the trust a true heart seeks:→ "We therefore commit his body To the deep"--and, as he speaks, Launched from the weather railing, A thousand summers and winters But, silence to doubt and dole:- Free the fettered engine, Blue sea all around us, Blue sky bright o'erhead— Every man to his duty, We have buried our dead! Henry Howard Brownell [1820-1872] TOM BOWLING HERE, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling, The darling of our crew; No more he'll hear the tempest howling, Tom never from his word departed, His virtues were so rare; His friends were many and true-hearted, Messmates And then he'd sing, so blithe and jolly, But mirth is turned to melancholy, Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather, Shall give, to call Life's crew together, Thus Death, who Kings and Tars despatches, For, though his body's under hatches, His soul is gone aloft. 1629 Charles Dibdin [1745-1814] MESSMATES He gave us all a good-by cheerily At the first dawn of day; We dropped him down the side full drearily When the light died away. It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there, He's there alone with green seas rocking him He's there alone with dumb things mocking him, It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there, I wonder if the tramps come near enough, And the battleships' bells ring clear enough If through all the lone watch that he's a-keeping there, And the long, cold night that lags a-creeping there, The voices of the sailor-men shall comfort him When the great ships go by. Henry Newbolt [1862 THE LAST BUCCANEER OH, England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high, There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and stout, Thence we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold, Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folk of old; Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone, Who flog men and keelhaul them, and starve them to the bone. Oh, the palms grew high in Avès, and fruits that shone like gold, And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold; And the negro maids to Avès from bondage fast did flee, To welcome gallant sailors, a-sweeping in from sea. Oh, sweet it was in Avès to hear the landward breeze, But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things must be; So the King's ships sailed on Avès, and quite put down were we. The Last Buccaneer 1631 All day we fought like bulldogs, but they burst the booms at night; And I fled in a piragua, sore wounded, from the fight. Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside, And brought me home to England here, to beg until I die. And now I'm old and going-I'm sure I can't tell where; One comfort is, this world's so hard, I can't be worse off there: If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main, THE LAST BUCCANEER THE winds were yelling, the waves were swelling, The sky was black and drear, When the crew with eyes of flame brought the ship without a name Alongside the last Buccaneer. "Whence flies your sloop full sail before so fierce a gale, Say, come ye from the shore of the holy Salvador, "From a shore no search hath found, from a gulf no line can sound, Without rudder or needle we steer; Above, below our bark dies the sea-fowl and the shark. "To-night there shall be heard on the rocks of Cape de Verde A loud crash and a louder roar; And to-morrow shall the deep with a heavy moaning sweep The corpses and wreck to the shore." |