Then said the souls of the slaves that men threw

overboard:

"Kennelled in the picaroon a weary band

were we;

But Thy arm was strong to save,

And it touched us on the wave,

And we drowsed the long tides idle till Thy Trumpets tore the sea."

Then cried the soul of the stout Apostle Paul to God:

"Once we frapped a ship, and she laboured

woundily.

There were fourteen score of these,

And they blessed Thee on their knees,

When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under Malta by the sea."

Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, Plucking at their harps, and they plucked unhandily:

"Our thumbs are rough and tarred,

And the tune is something hard—

May we lift a Deepsea Chantey such as seamen

use at sea?”

Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adven

turers

Fettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity:

"Ho, we revel in our chains

O'er the sorrow that was Spain's;

Heave or sink it, leave or drink it, we were masters of the sea!"

Up spake the soul of a gray Gothavn 'speckshioner

(He that led the flinching in the fleets of fair Dundee):

"Ho, the ringer and right whale,

And the fish we struck for sale,

Will Ye whelm them all for wantonness that wallow in the sea?"

Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, Crying: "Under Heaven, here is neither lead nor lea!

Must we sing for evermore

On the windless, glassy floor?

Take back your golden fiddles and we'll beat to open sea!"

Then stooped the Lord, and He called the good

sea up to Him,

And 'stablished his borders unto all eternity,

That such as have no pleasure

For to praise the Lord by measure,

They may enter into galleons and serve Him on the sea.

Sun, wind, and cloud shall fail not from the face of it,

Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying free;

And the ships shall go abroad

To the glory of the Lord

Who heard the silly sailor-folk and gave them back their sea!

THE MERCHANTMEN.

KING SOLOMON drew merchantmen,
Because of his desire

For peacocks, apes, and ivory,
From Tarshish unto Tyre:
With cedars out of Lebanon

Which Hiram rafted down,

But we be only sailormen

That use in London town.

Coastwise-cross-seas—round the world and back

again

Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits

Plain-sail-storm-sail-lay your board and tack again

And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!

We bring no store of ingots,

Of spice or precious stones,
But that we have we gathered

With sweat and aching bones:

In flame beneath the tropics,
In frost upon the floe,
And jeopardy of every wind
That does between them go.

And some we got by purchase,
And some we had by trade,
And some we found by courtesy
Of pike and carronade,

At midnight, 'mid-sea meetings,

For charity to keep,

And light the rolling homeward-bound That rode a foot too deep.

By sport of bitter weather

We're walty, strained, and scarred
From the kentledge on the kelson
To the slings upon the yard.
Six oceans had their will of us
To carry all away-

Our galley 's in the Baltic,

And our boom's in Mossel Bay!

We've floundered off the Texel,
Awash with sodden deals,
We've slipped from Valparaiso

With the Norther at our heels: