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| 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— | 5 |
| 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— | |
| If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men! | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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? | 20 |
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| Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew; | |
| Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through. | |
| 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; | 25 |
| There’s my name upon the deck-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 welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal; | 30 |
| By eyes grown old with staring through the sunwash 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, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
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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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| It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more— | 45 |
| Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar. | |
| But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then? | |
| God be thanked! Whate’er comes after, I have lived and toiled with Men! | |
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