“Oh that's not poetry 't all. It's some rot I wrote last night before I went to bed and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it a sort of a blank verse instead.”
Here is Charlie's “blank verse”:
“We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.
“Will you never let us go?
“We ate bread and onions when you took towns or ran aboard quickly when you were beaten back by the foe,
“The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing songs, but we were below,
“We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we were idle for we still swung to and fro.
“Will you never let us go?
“The salt made the oar handles like sharkskin; our knees were cut to the bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and our lips were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we could not row.
“Will you never let us go?