But what’s this I feel that is fanning my cheek,
    Matt? 
  The white goney’s wing?—­how she rolls!—­
    ’t is the Cape!—­
Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is
    mine, none;
  And tell Holy Joe to avast with the crape.

Dead reckoning, says Joe, it won’t do to go by;
  But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky
    t’ other night. 
Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the
    Deadman;
  And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon
    near right.

The signal!—­it streams for the grand fleet to
    anchor. 
  The captains—­the trumpets—­the hullabaloo! 
Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your
    shank-painters,
  For the Lord High Admiral, he’s squinting
    at you!

But give me my tot, Matt, before I roll over;
  Jock, let’s have your flipper, it’s good for to
    feel;
And don’t sew me up without baccy in mouth,
    boys,
  And don’t blubber like lubbers when I turn
    up my keel.

JACK ROY

Kept up by relays of generations young
Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung;
While in sands, sounds, and seas where the
  storm-petrels cry,
Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard
  singers lie. 
Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that
  run,
And speeds in life’s career many a lavish
  mother’s-son.

But thou, manly king o’ the old Splendid’s
  crew,
The ribbons o’ thy hat still a-fluttering, should
  fly—­
A challenge, and forever, nor the bravery
  should rue. 
Only in a tussle for the starry flag high,
When ’tis piety to do, and privilege to die. 
Then, only then, would heaven think to lop
Such a cedar as the captain o’ the Splendid’s
  main-top: 
A belted sea-gentleman; a gallant, off-hand
Mercutio indifferent in life’s gay command. 
Magnanimous in humor; when the splintering
  shot fell,
“Tooth-picks a-plenty, lads; thank ’em with a
  shell!”

Sang Larry o’ the Cannakin, smuggler o’ the
  wine,
At mess between guns, lad in jovial recline: 
“In Limbo our Jack he would chirrup up a
  cheer,
The martinet there find a chaffing mutineer;
From a thousand fathoms down under hatches
  o’ your Hades,
He’d ascend in love-ditty, kissing fingers to
  your ladies!”

Never relishing the knave, though allowing
  for the menial,
Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally
  genial. 
Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade,
Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade,
Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow
  a-sweeping—­
Arch iridescent shot from seas languid
  sleeping.

Larking with thy life, if a joy but a toy,
Heroic in thy levity wert thou, Jack Roy.

Sea Pieces