WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD Black man, white man, brown man, yellow man, All the lousy Orient loafing on the quay; Hindoo, Dago, Jap, Malay and Chinaman Dipping into London from the great green sea! Black man, white man, brown man, yellow man, Pennyfields and Poplar and Chinatown for me! Stately moving cutthroats and many colored mysteries; Never were such lusty things for London days to see! On the evil twilight, rose and star and silver, Steals a song that long ago in Singapore they sang; Fragrant of spices, of incense and opium, Cinnamon and aconite, the betel and the bhang. Three miles straight lies lily-clad Belgravia, Tomtom and shark knife and salt-caked sail. Then get you down to Limehouse, by rigging, wharf and smokestack, Glamour, dirt and perfume, and dusky men and gold; For down in lurking Limehouse there's the blue moon of the Orient, Lamps for young Aladdins and bowies for the bold. Thomas Burke THE DESTROYER MEN 63 THE CHINA CLIPPER A ghost ship drives on the haunted trails: She's a lady ship by the way she sails: The trade wind strums on the weather shrouds, The white seas race astern; She'll make Foochow like a drift of clouds ་ By the London docks from Java Head, She'll back her yards when the dawn is red, The scent of heathen merchandise, A dream ship drives through the misty seas: Sing Johnny don't forget her! She's a lady, sir, and, if you please, Sing Johnny off to China. Sing Johnny-O and let her go! Sing Johnny back from China! Aaron Davis THE DESTROYER MEN There's a roll and pitch and a heave and hitch For they're used to the cant of the decks aslant As the white-toothed combers break On the plates that thrum like a beaten drum As the knife-bow leaps through the yeasty deeps Oh! their scorn is quick for the crews who stick To a battleship's steady floor, For they love the lurch of their own frail perch They don't get much of the drills and such They needn't climb at their sleeping time And close their eyes to the lullabies They scour the deep for the "subs" that creep On their dirty assassin's work, And their keenest fun is to hunt the Hun Wherever his U-boats lurk. They live in hope that a periscope Will show in the deep sea swell, Then a true shot hits and it's "Good-bye, Fritz" His future address is Hell! TO AN OLD BARGE 65 They're a lusty crowd and they're vastly proud Of the slim, swift craft they drive, Of the roaring flues and the humming screws They love the lunge of her surging plunge Berton Braley TO AN OLD BARGE Soggy in an oily slip, beyond the river's bend end; With all her silver canvas that strange suns looked upon Disposed to river Shylocks, and her proud masts gone. Only their ragged stumps remained, and gloomy and begrimed Looked up into the windy skies where royal sonce had climbed; And bows, once so immaculate, were daubed with river brown The slender, snowy, roving bows that tramped blue water down! Cast out by those who loved her and knew her very soul To traverse dirty rivers and ferry dirty coal She lay there by the string-piece, bedraggled, without name, And seemed a wasted beauty forgotten in her shame. And all the men that came and went spit brown upon her rails Where proud-lipped skippers once had leaned and eyed the straining sails. They wheeled their barrows on her decks to please a hairy boss The decks that gleamed to northern lights and sought the Southern Cross. But one, still strange to landsman's work, rubbing a sooty eye, Gulped: "Cripes-it is the Albemarle-my ship-come 'ere to die!" And dropped his barrow on the plank, stalling the men below, His hat off, his head bowed, for the beauty of long ago. Gordon Seagrove THE OLD-TIMER Here I am, an old 'un, a-sittin' on a string-piece, - |