Give me the Scripters, Jakey, ’n’ my pipe atween my lips,
I’m bound for somewhere south and far beyond the track of ships;
I’ve run my rags of colours up and clinched them to the stay,
And God the pilot’s come aboard to bring me up the bay.
You’ll mainsail-haul my bits o’ things when Christ has took my soul,
’N’ you’ll lay me quiet somewhere at the landward end the Mole,
Where I shall hear the steamers’ sterns a-squattering from the heave,
And the topsail blocks a-piping when a rope-yarn fouls the sheave.
Give me a sup of lime-juice; Lord, I’m drifting in to port,
The landfall lies to windward and the wind comes light and short,
And I’m for signing off and out to take my watch below,
And—prop a fellow, Jakey—Lord, it’s time for me to go!
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife,
You can divvy up the dungarees an’ bed,
An’ the ship can have my blessing, an’ the Lord can have my life,
An’ sails an’ fish my body when I’m dead.
An’ dreaming down below there in the tangled greens an’ blues,
Where the sunlight shudders golden round about,
I shall hear the ships complainin’ an’ the cursin’ of the crews,
An’ be sorry when the watch is tumbled out.
I shall hear them hilly-hollying the weather crojick brace,
And the sucking of the wash about the hull;
When they chanty up the topsail I’ll be hauling in my place,
For my soul will follow seawards like a gull.
I shall hear the blocks a-grunting in the bumpkins over-side,
An’ the slatting of the storm-sails on the stay,
An’ the rippling of the catspaw at the making of the tide,
An’ the swirl and splash of porpoises at play.
An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife,
You can divvy up the whack I haven’t scofft,
An’ the ship can have my blessing and the Lord can have my life,
For it’s time I quit the deck and went aloft.