THE THREE-DECKER

But when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,

At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail

dressed,

You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head;

While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!

Hull down-hull down and under-she dwindles to a speck,

With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck. All's well-all's well aboard her-she's left you far

behind,

With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.

Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?

You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake?

Well, tinker up your engines-you know your business best

She's taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!

AN AMERICAN

(1894)

The American Spirit speaks:

T

F the Led Striker call it a strike,
Or the papers call it a war,

They know not much what I am like,

Nor what he is, my Avatar.'

Through many roads, by me possessed,
He shambles forth in cosmic guise;
He is the Jester and the Jest,

And he the Text himself applies.

The Celt is in his heart and hand,

The Gaul is in his brain and nerve; Where, cosmopolitanly planned,

He guards the Redskin's dry reserve.

His easy unswept hearth he lends
From Labrador to Guadeloupe;
Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,

He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.

Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown,
Or panic-blinded stabs and slays:
Blatant he bids the world bow down,
Or cringing begs a crust of praise;

AN AMERICAN

Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,
He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.
His hands are black with blood-his heart
Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.

But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humour saves him wholeThe cynic devil in his blood

That bids him mock his hurrying soul;

That bids him flout the Law he makes,
That bids him make the Law he flouts,
Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes
The drumming guns that—have no doubts;

That checks him foolish-hot and fond,
That chuckles through his deepest ire,
That gilds the slough of his despond
But dims the goal of his desire;

Inopportune, shrill-accented,

The acrid Asiatic mirth

That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead,
The scandal of the elder earth.

How shall he clear himself, how reach
Your bar or weighed defence prefer?
A brother hedged with alien speech
And lacking all interpreter.

Which knowledge vexes him a space;
But while Reproof around him rings,
He turns a keen untroubled face
Home, to the instant need of things.

Enslaved, illogical, elate,

He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate

Or match with Destiny for beers.

Lo, imperturbable he rules,

Unkempt, disreputable, vastAnd, in the teeth of all the schools, I-I shall save him at the last!

THE MARY GLOSTER

(1894)

'VE paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim

Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!

Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? Helied. I shall go under by morning, and— Put that nurse out

side.

'Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn,

And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn.

Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too,

I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned if I

made you.

Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three— Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters

at sea!

Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it fight, And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite: For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness-what was it the papers a-had?

'Not least of our merchant-princes.' Dickie, that's me, your dad!