All watchful, mute, the crouching guns that guard the strait sea lanes

Watchful and hawk-like, plumed with hate, the desperate aeroplanes

And still as death and swift as fate, above the darkling coasts,

The spying Wireless sows the night with troops of stealthy ghosts,

While hushed through all her huddled streets the tide-walled city waits

The drumming thunders that announce brute battle at her gates.

Southward a hundred windy leagues, through storms that blind and bar,

Our cheated cruisers search the waves, our Captains seek the war;

But here the port of peril is; the foeman's dreadnoughts ride

Sullen and black against the moon, upon a sullen

tide.

And only we to launch ourselves against their stark advance

To guide uncertain lightnings through these treacherous seas of chance!

And now a wheeling searchlight paints a signal on the night;

And now the bellowing guns are loud with the wild lust of fight.

And now, her flanks of steel a-pulse with all the power of hell,

THE INCORRIGIBLE

163

Forth from the darkness leaps in pride a hateful

miracle,

The flagship of their Admiral- and now God help and save!

We challenge Death at Death's own game; we sink beneath the wave!

Ah, steady now - and one good blow one straight stab through the gloom —

Ah, good! the thrust went home! she founders founders to her doom!

Full speed ahead!— those damned quick-firing - but let them bark—

guns What's that

the dynamos? - they've got us,

men!- Christ! in the dark!

Don Marquis

THE INCORRIGIBLE

Of all hard lives, the sailor's is the worst;
Toil-hardship-danger-little else beside;

Forever on the move, like one accurst;

His home — his war-bag, and the sea

his bride.

While the trade-wind croons to the tautened sail, And the golden moon draws a silver trail

Through the waves that lap at the vessel's rail

While the rosy east grows paler;

He sands the deck, or he scrapes the rail,

Or he lays aloft with a gummy pail
To tar the rigging, or take in sail,
And to damn the life of a sailor.

But I can't peddle ribbons all day long;

Silk shirts, and perfumes! Bah! They stifle me;
I'm lonesome in this senseless, shuffling throng;
I want fresh air, and freedom, and

We'll say you go in steam

Part stevedore

the sea!

- that's Hell again;

part flunky — and the rest

Dumb beast; to drudge your measured shift and

then

Do "overtime" on cargo-"by request."

You wrestle freight in a fetid hold,

Or you coil down lines in the piercing cold,
While the Northern Lights roll, fold on fold,
And mock you for "fools" and "failures."
When the heat-waves blur in the sultry air
You're over the side, in a bosun's chair,
To scrape and paint, and to curse and swear
At the sea, and its ships, and its sailors.

But I can't stand the shop's unceasing din;
The "chanting wheels of progress" madden me;
I want to feel the wind against my skin·
To breathe the salty fragrance of — the sea!

You turn to gas- - that's worse than all the rest!

The stink cramped quarters — grub that drives you mad!

A decent berth at sea's a hopeless quest;
There just ain't no such critter to be had.

You hit the banks with fishing-fleet

Where the wind blows the sea-boots off your feet,

THE INCORRIGIBLE

And you battle with fog, and snow, and sleet
That would shake the heart of a whaler.

Or

you follow the wily salmon's trails

Till your very soul seems caked with scales,
And you swear by all that swims or sails
You will ship no more as a sailor.

But I can't ride a pitchfork all my life;
The clover's fragrance don't appeal to me;
I want the scent of tar- the sense of strife;
Who wouldn't sell a farm and go to sea?

165

The poet sings of the starry night, and the lowswung southern moon;

But the sailor battles with Neptune's might, and the wrath of the mad typhoon.

The Southern Cross is a total loss to a soul by hardship calloused,

And a wave-swept deck breeds scant respect for the "Rory Bory Alice."

It's tough to be on the boundless sea, with fire 'neath your battened hatches;

For there's little chance to court Romance while your skin peels off in patches.

You've small desire to invite your soul, or to drink in Nature's beauty,

Whilst you breathe the reek from a slimy hold, or pursue the lightsome cootie.

It's a hard, and a grim, and a thankless life; no profits, and little mirth;

It's a tough old game, but I'd swap that same for no other life on earth!

Larry O'Conner

ABANDONED IN THE ICE

There's a blotch to-night on the snow-fields white, And the frost-locked floe-bergs fret

'Gainst the open sides where a whale-ship rides With her frozen canvas set.

The star-frost sifts where she dreams and drifts In the grip of a crystal sea

But the buried trails of the bowhead whales

Urge her on through eternity.

There's a scented breeze on the southern seas
Where her sister ships decay.

But she laughs at time in that frozen clime
Where the blinding blizzards play.

The auroras flare in the bitter air
Where the deadly ice-dust swirls-
Waking the fires of lost desires
In her cordage of crusted pearls.

Chart Pitt

SAILING ORDERS

If you're weary of the office

And your step has lost its snap,
If you're looking for a life that fits

A big, two-fisted chap –

If you want to go a-roving

All this jolly old world 'round
Come a-running, running, buddy,
When the bugle starts to sound.

For we've got our sailing orders,
And there's joy in all our hearts