A Yarn.
Jack’s brawny chest like the broad sea heaved, While his loving lip to the beaker cleaved; And he drew his tarred and well-saved sleeve Across his mouth, as he drained the can, And thus to his listening mates began:—
“When I sailed, a boy, in the schooner Mike, No bigger, I trow, than a marlinespike— But I’ve told ye the tale ere now, belike?” “Go on!” each voice re-echoed, And the tar thrice hemmed, and thus he said:—
“A stanch-built craft as the waves e’er bore— We had loosed our sail for home once more, Freighted full deep from Labrador, When a cloud one night rose on our lee, That the heart of the stoutest quailed to see.
“And voices wild with the winds were blent, As our bark her prow to the waters bent; And the seamen muttered their discontent— Muttered and nodded ominously— But the mate, right carelessly whistled he.