"But carry him up to the sand-hollows to die as Bering died, "And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair,

"And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!"

Half-steam ahead by guess and lead, for the sun is mostly veiled –
Through fog to fog, by luck and log, sail you as Bering sailed;
And if the light shall lift aright to give your landfall plain,
North and by west, from Zapne Crest you raise the Crosses
Twain.

Fair marks are they to the inner bay, the reckless poacher knows,
What time the scarred see-catchie lead their sleek seraglios.
Ever they hear the floe-pack clear, and the blast of the old bull-
whale,

And the deep seal-roar that beats off-shore above the loudest gale.
Ever they wait the winter's hate as the thundering boorga calls,
Where northward look they to St. George, and westward to St.

Paul's.

Ever they greet the hunted fleet

lone keels off headlands drear When the sealing-schooners flit that way at hazard year by year.

Ever in Yokohama port men tell the tale anew

Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight,

When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light And the Stralsund fought the two.

M'ANDREW'S HYMN

1893

LORD, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a

dream,

An', taught by time, I tak' it so exceptin' always Steam. From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O

God –

Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.

John Calvin might ha' forged the same enorrmous, certain, slow

Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame- my "Institutio."

I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; I'll stand the middle watch up here alone wi' God an' these

My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again.

Slam-bang too much- they knock a wee the crossheadgibs are loose,

...

But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse.
Fine, clear an' dark — a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out

o' sight,

- Two

An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye 'll walk to-night!
His wife's at Plymouth.
at Plymouth. . . . Seventy-
Seventy-One
Three since he began -

Three turns for Mistress Ferguson

the man?

and who's to blame

There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow, Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago. (The year the Sarah Sands was burned. Oh roads we used to tread,

Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws - fra' Govan to Parkhead!) Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye 'll hear Sir Kenneth

say:

"Good morrn, M'Andrew! Back again? An' how's your bilge to-day?

Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair

To drink Madeira wi' three Earls

That started as a boiler-whelp

low.

the auld Fleet Engineer when steam and he were

I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow!
Ten pound was all the pressure then Eh! Eh!

wad drive;

a man

An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder sixty-five!

We're creepin' on wi' each new rig-less weight an' larger

power:

There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour! Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what about the man? The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea: Four time the span from earth to moon. How far, O

Lord, from Thee?

That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first

typhoon?

It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon. Three feet were on the stokehold-floor -just slappin' to an'

fro

An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show. Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns

an' black,

deep in my soul

An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness

comes back.

The sins o' four an' forty years, all up an' down the seas, Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. .. Forgie's our trespasses!

Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze, The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel-stays; Years when I raked the Ports wi' pride to fill my cup o'

wrong

Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong

Kong!

Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode

Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant

I was not four and twenty then-Ye wadna judge a child? I'd seen the Tropics first that run

new fruit, new smells,

- the Deil was lurkin'

there?

By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy

eyes;

By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies,

In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the

streets

An ijjit grinnin' in a dream—for shells an' parrakeets,
An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an'

dried

Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside.

Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca', Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "M'Andrew, come awa'!"

Firm, clear an' low-no haste, no hate the ghostly whisper went,

Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument:

"Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel', "Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell.

"They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt, "A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that 's only strong to hurt, "Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod, "But come wi' Us" (Now, who were They?) "an' know the Leevin' God,

"That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest,

"But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's

breast."

An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice

For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. "T was on me like a thunderclap — it racked me through an' through

Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an' newThe Sin against the Holy Ghost? . . . An' under all, our

screw.

That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell,

Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell.

Third on the Mary Gloster then, and first that night in Hell! Yet was Thy hand beneath my head, about my feet Thy

Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair,

But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer!

We dared not run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire,

An' I was drowsin' on the hatch-sick-sick wi' doubt

an' tire:

"Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire!” Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs — again, an' once

again,

When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'

chain;

An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty plain.
Light on the engine-room

bons burn.

no more - bright as our car

I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past return!

Obsairve. Per annum we 'll have here two thousand souls aboard

Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord,

But aaverage fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra' port to port

I am o' service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought? Maybe they steam from Grace to Wrath-to sin by folly led,

It isna mine to judge their path their lives are on my head.

Mine at the last when all is done it all comes back to me,
The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon
the sea.
We'll tak' one stretch - three weeks an' odd by any road

ye steer

Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington - ye need an engineer.