| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
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| The Tankers |
| | | Gordon Malherbe Hillman |
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| TO Bombay and Capetown, and ports of a hundred lands, | |
| To Mombassa, Panama, and Aden on the sands, | |
| Red with rust and green with mould, caked with sodden brine, | |
| The reeling, rolling tankers sail Southward from the Tyne. | |
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| Southward past the Cornish cliffs, cleft red against the clouds, | 5 |
| They snort and stagger onward with sailors in their shrouds | |
| To the spell of rolling seas and the blue of a windy sky | |
| While the smoke lies brown to leeward or the liners scurry by. | |
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| Thrashing through a tearing gale with a dark green sea ahead, | |
| While the funnel clews sing madly against a sky of red, | 10 |
| Foam choked and wave choked, scarred by battered gear, | |
| The long brown decks are whirling seas where silver combers rear. | |
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| Swinging down a brilliant gulf with shores of brown and gray | |
| The snub-nosed, well-decked tankers slowly steam their way | |
| Up the straits to the Pirate Coast and dim harbors of the South | 15 |
Where they lie like long red patches by a jungle river’s mouth.
Contemporary Verse | |
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