| |
1890
SEVEN men from all the world back to Docks again, | |
| Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain. | |
| Give the girls another drink ’fore we sign away— | |
| We that took the “Bolivar” out across the Bay! | |
| |
| We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails; | 5 |
| We put back to Sunderland ’cause our cargo shifted; | |
| We put out from Sunderland—met the winter gales— | |
| Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted. | |
| |
| Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow, | |
| All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below, | 10 |
| Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray— | |
| Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay! | |
| |
| One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by; | |
| Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo’c’sle short; | |
| Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly; | 15 |
| Left The Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port. | |
| |
| Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul; | |
| Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll; | |
| Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray— | |
| So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay! | 20 |
| |
| Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she’d break; | |
| Wondered every time she raced if she’d stand the shock; | |
| Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake; | |
| Hoped the Lord ’ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block! | |
| |
| Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal; | 25 |
| Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul; | |
| ’Last we prayed she’d buck herself into Judgment Day— | |
| Hi! we cursed the Bolivar knocking round the Bay! | |
| |
| O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still— | |
| Up and down and back we went, never time for breath; | 30 |
| Then the money paid at Lloyd’s caught her by the keel, | |
| And the stars ran round and round dancin’ at our death! | |
| |
| Aching for an hour’s sleep, dozing off between; | |
| ’Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green; | |
| Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play— | 35 |
| That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay! | |
| |
| Once we saw between the squalls, lyin’ head to swell— | |
| Mad with work and weariness, wishin’ they was we— | |
| Some damned Liner’s lights go by like a grand hotel; | |
| ’Cheered her from the Bolivar swampin’ in the sea. | 40 |
| |
| Then a greyback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed; | |
| “Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell—rig the winches aft! | |
| “Yoke the kicking rudder-head—get her under way!” | |
| So we steered her, pully-haul, out across the Bay! | |
| |
| Just a pack o’ rotten plates puttied up with tar, | 45 |
| In we came, an’ time enough, ’cross Bilbao Bar. | |
| Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we | |
| Euchred God Almighty’s storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea! | |
| |
| Seven men from all the world back to town again, | |
| Rollin’ down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain: | 50 |
| Seven men from out of Hell. Ain’t the owners gay, | |
| ’Cause we took the “Bolivar” safe across the Bay? | |
| |
