NOW at the window, side by side,
We sit and take our ease,
And watch the ebb and flow of tide
That sweetens all the seas.
His face is in the twilight glow,
His teeth a pipe between —
A sailor of the years ago,
An old man grey and lean.
He knew the Western waterways
Before the whirling screw;
The clippers of the sailing days,
In all their pride, he knew.
Jack Marlin’s voice is harsh and shrill,
But as he hoarsely sings,
I see the grand old vessels fill
Their white, outspreading wings.
I hear his long-dead messmates round
A rusty capstan go;
I hear the songs of “Homeward Bound,”
The song of “Lowland’s Low.”
I hear the cotton chanteys ring,
And, out across the bars,
I see the Black-ball flyers fling
Their topmasts to the stars.
The Indi’man she tacks and wears
O’er heaving miles of foam;
The Bristol trader humbly bears
Her owner’s cargoes home.
The riding lamps glint through the rain
Where in their roadsteads lie
The timid hulls of Trade again
As in the nights gone by.
Aye, in the nights their rain-wet spars
Loom high and strange, I ween,
When out beyond the crooning bars,
The seabirds call unseen.
The light has faded from the west
And o’er a shadowed sea,
With black wings folded on her breast,
Night broods and mystery.
Jack Marlin, with the rising moon
Is singing, hoarse and low,
Strange words to some forgotten tune
Of fifty years ago!
(Edwin James Brady)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Light Poems, Faces Poems, Home Poems, Pride Poems, Singing Poems, Mystery Poems, Business & Commerce PoemsBased on Keywords: long-dead, lowland, capstan, messmates, clippers, cargoes, sweetens, bristol, trader, hoarsely, seabirds