Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/191

Coastwise—cross-seas—round the world and back again—
    Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits—
Plain-sail—storm-sail!—lay your board and tack again—
    And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!

We bring no store of ingots,
    Of spice or precious stones,
But what we have we gathered
    With sweat and aching bones:
In flame beneath the tropics,
    In frost upon the floe,
And jeopardy of every wind
    That does between them go.

And some we got by purchase,
    And some we had by trade,
And some we found by courtesy
    Of pike and carronade—
At midnight, ’mid-sea meetings,
    For charity to keep,
And light the rolling homeward-bound
    That rode a foot too deep!

By sport of bitter weather
    We’re walty, strained, and scarred
From the kentledge on the kelson
    To the slings upon the yard.
Six oceans had their will of us
    To carry all away—
Our galley's in the Baltic,
    And our boom's in Mossel Bay!

We’ve floundered off the Texel,
    Awash with sodden deals,
We’ve slipped from Valparaiso
    With the Norther at our heels: