SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER
Tree Climbing
SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER
CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE AT SEA, IN AUSTRALIA
AND AMID THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC
BY
A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON
❦
WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST MARTIN’S STREET
LEICESTER SQUARE
MDCCCCXV
PRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY BROTHER
MORTIMER HUGH MIDDLETON
AGED SIXTEEN YEARS
Lost overboard in mid-ocean while serving
before the mast of a sailing
ship outbound for
Australia
ALSO TO THE MEMORY OF
CAPTAIN POPPY
Of the sailing ship Aristides, lost
with all hands
AND TO THE MEMORY OF
MY COMRADES
Of the Australian Bush and
the South Sea Islands
Old comrades, by my fire in dreams
Your hands I clasp to-night;
Heaven starlit o’er the forest gleams
As ’neath the blood-wood’s height
You lie with folded hands asleep
By shores of tumbling waves,
As I creep up each silent steep
To kiss forgotten graves.
The soul of all the songs I sing,
Whatever sounds most true,
I dedicate each wild true ring,
Inspired, old chums, by you.
The world grieves not that you are dead—
Brave, reckless men who died,
Crept from their camp-fires back to bed
Along the wild hill-side.
But, comrades, ’neath the hills or waves,
Could one sad song of mine
Reveal dead souls of far-off graves,
’Twould be a song divine.
As pure and sweet as flowers that grow
Where once with wild delight
You sang, where bush-flowers, bursting, blow
Thro’ dead fire-ash to-night.
And so in dreams I take your hands,
In long-dead eyes I gaze,
And half in tears from other lands
Bring back the dear old days.
In other lands ’neath greyer skies
Wild rides again recall,
Your songs, your laughing, manly eyes—
The boy who loved you all.
Lies in my sea-chest ’neath my bed
The fiddle, stringless, still;
Old chums, since all of you are dead,
’Neath forest steep and hill,
I cannot play the songs you loved;
But with tired eyes and pen
I strive to tell the truth, who roved,
And found you—God’s best men.