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Songs of Sea and Sail

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<h2>THE SAILOR OF THE SAIL.</h2> I sing the Sailor of the Sail, breed of the oaken heart, Who drew the world together and spread our race apart, Whose conquests are the measure of thrice the ocean's girth, Whose trophies are the nations that necklace half the earth. Lord of the Bunt and Gasket and Master of the Yard, To whom no land was distant, to whom no sea was barred: Who battled with the current; who conquered with the wind; [Pg 64] Who shaped the course before him by the wake he threw behind; Who burned in twenty climates; who froze in twenty seas; Who crept the shore of Labrador and flash'd the Caribbees. Who followed Drake; who fought with Blake; who broke the bar of Spain, And who gave to timid traffic the freedom of the main. Who woke the East; who won the West; who made the North his own; Who weft his wake in many a fake athwart the Southern zone; Who drew the thread of commerce through Sunda's rocky strait; Who faced the fierce Levanter where England holds the gate; Who saw the frozen mountains draw down the moonlike sun; [Pg 65] Who felt the gale tear at the sail, and ice gnaw at the run; Who drove the lance of barter through Asia's ancient shield; Who tore from drowsy China what China dare not yield; Who searched with Cook and saw him unroll beneath his hand The last, the strangest continent, the sundered Southern land; To whom all things were barter—slaves, spices, gold, and gum; Who gave his life for glory; who sold his soul for rum— I sing him, and I see him, as only those can see Who stake their lives to fathom that solveless mystery; Who on the space of waters have fought the killing gale, [Pg 66] Have heard the crying of the spar, the moaning of the sail; Who never see the ocean but that they feel its hand Clutch like a siren at the heart to drag it from the land; I see him in the running when seas would overwhelm Lay breathing hard along the yard and sweating at the helm. I see him at the earing light out the stubborn bands When every foot of canvas is screeved with bloody hands. I see him freezing, starving—I see him scurvy curst, Alone, and slowly dying, locked in that hell of thirst. I see him drunk and fighting roll through some seaboard town, [Pg 67] When those who own and rob him take to the street and frown. O Sovereign of the Boundless! O Bondsman of the Wave! Who made the world dependent, yet lived and died a slave. In Britain's vast Valhalla, where sleep her worst and best— Where is the grave she made you—your first and final rest— Beneath no stone or trophy, beneath no minster tower, Lie those who gave her Empire, who stretched her arm to power. Below those markless pathways where commerce shapes the trail, [Pg 68] Unsung, unrung, forgotten, sleeps The Sailor of The Sail. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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