“
By Casey’s Occidental Rooms, when the sun is getting low,
The chattering crowds of Chinatown along the pavements go,
And then you’ll hear the wrangling gulls about the harbour-side,
And see the ships come in which use the oceans deep and wide,
And smell the smell o’ the waterfront, the shipping and the tide.
And there do meet all brands o’ folk which on the Coast are found,
From Behring Strait to Mexico, from Frisco and the Sound,
The Dago and the Dutchman there, with all queer breeds that be,
Stand up to drink with Jap and Chink beside the western sea.
And there do swear and fight and lie and leave their pay behind
The whalers and the tugboat men and the loggers rolling blind;
And there the Siwash and the Sikh go jostling side by side,
And sailormen blow out and in like driftlogs tide by tide.
By Casey’s Occidental Rooms, as I was strolling by
And thinking over this and that, and things both far and nigh,
There chanced to meet me face to face a man I used to know;
That sailed with me in the ‘Matterhorn’, in a day that’s long ago.
And “”Oh, Lord love you, Mike,”” I said, and took him by the hand,
“”Do you sail yet in the ‘Matterhorn,’ and are you long for land?
It’s good to see your face again, these longshore lads among,
To ‘mind me of the ‘Matterhorn’ and the time when I was young.””
“”If I had sailed in the ‘Matterhorn’ it is not here I’d be,
And thirsty as the hob of hell as I am now,”” said he,
“”A bitter drink I’d sup among the cold and clammy dead
If I had signed in the ‘Matterhorn’ when last she sailed,”” he said.
“”She’s gone, and none but old Cape Stiff can tell the when or how,
And them that watched the lists for her, they’re tired o’ watching now;
Far down, far down in Dead Man’s Bay both ship and men do lie,
And the ‘Lutine’ bell has rung for her this many a day gone by.
“”I saw her sail from Salthouse Dock – the sun was risin’ red,
And ‘See you next in Callao’ my friends aboard her said;
‘Tween Callao and Liverpool a many ports there be,
And many men I’ll meet again -but them I shall not see.
“”Well, safe we got to ‘Callao’, but we were long a-going,
The old tub leaking like a sieve, old Horn his hardest blowing;
The big seas swept her fore and aft; the sails they cut like steel;
Our bodies to the yards they froze, our hands froze to the wheel.””
“”And them that sailed before us came, and most that since did sail,
They came all battered with the seas and broken with the gale;
And one that had been missing long, with sticks all snapped and shorn
Limped in to tell her tale ashore, but not the ‘Matterhorn’.””
“”So last we knew that she was gone, as best and worst may go,
The good ship and the bad likewise, the fast ship and the slow;
A fast ship was the ‘Matterhorn’ when all them kites was spread,
A fast ship and fine she was – “”Ay, she was fast,”” I said.
* * * * * * *
From course to skysail up she soared like a midsummer cloud;
In all the earth I have not seen a thing more brave and proud;
And she is gone as dreams do go, or song sung long before,
Or the golden years of a man’s youth when they are his no more.
And all the shining moons of youth, and all the stars of dream
Were tangled in her topmast spars and through her shrouds did gleam;
Now thundering like a North Sea gale, now humming faint and low,
Came singing with her down the years the winds of long ago.
By Casey’s Occidental Rooms a bitter thing I heard,
With a heavy heart I turned away, and long I spoke no word;
I bared my head there where I stood, “”God rest her soul,”” I said,
As if a woman I had loved in a far land was dead.
(Cicely Fox Smith)”
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