What ship could live in such a sea?
What vessel bear the shock?
"Ho! starboard port your helm-a-lee!
Ho! reef the maintop-gallant-tree,
With many a running block!"
And right upon the Scilly Isles
The ship had run aground;
When lo! the stalwart Captain Giles
Mounts up upon the gaff and smiles,
And slews the compass round.
"Saved! saved!" with joy the sailors cry,
And scandalize the skiff;
As taut and hoisted high and dry
They see the ship unstoppered lie
Upon the sea-girt cliff.
And since that day in Falmouth Bay,
As herring-fishers trawl,
The younkers hear the boatswains say
How Captain Giles that awful day
Preserved the sinking yawl.
E.H. Palmer.
A SAILOR'S YARN
As narrated by the second mate to one of the marines.
This is the tale that was told to me,
By a battered and shattered son of the sea:
To me and my messmate, Silas Green,
When I was a guileless young marine.
"'T was the good ship 'Gyacutus,'
All in the China seas;
With the wind a lee, and the capstan free,
To catch the summer breeze."
"'T was Captain Porgie on the deck
To the mate in the mizzen hatch,
While the boatswain bold, in the for'ard hold,
Was winding his larboard watch."