Oh, gallant was our galley from her carven steering-wheel |
To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel. |
The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air, |
But no galley on the waters with our galley could compare! |
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Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold - |
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold; |
The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below, |
As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made the galley go. |
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It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then - |
И they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men! |
As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute’s bliss, |
And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lover’s kiss. |
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Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark - |
They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark - |
We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped |
We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead. |
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Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we - |
The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea! |
By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and |
yawed and sheered, |
Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared? |
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Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew. |
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Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death? |
Nay, our very babes would mock you had they time for idle breath. |
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But to-day I leave the galley and another takes my place; |
There’s my name upon the desk-beam - let it stand a little space. |
I am free - to watch my messmates beating out to open main, |
Free of all that Life can offer - save to handle sweep again. |
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By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, |
By the welts the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal; |
By eyes grown old with staring through the sun wash on the brine, |
I am paid in full for service. Would that service still were mine! |
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Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth, |
Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North; |
When the niggers break the hatches and the decks are gay with gore, |
And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore. |
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She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare. |
When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there. |
Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by, |
To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash |
themselves and die. |
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Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away - |
Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day, |
When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath, |
And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their teeth. |
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Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar. |
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God be thanked! Whate’er comes after, I have lived and toiled with Men! |