128
SONGS FROM THE SOUTHERN SEAS.
Never absent,—when the man smiled it was hidden, but not gone.
Old church-members of Nantucket knew him for a shining lamp,
But his chronic Christian spirit was of pharisaic stamp.
"When ashore, he prayed aloud of how he 'd sinned and been forgiven,—
How his evil ways had brought him 'thin an ace of losing heaven;
Thank the Lord ! his eyes were opened, and so on; but when the ship
"Was just ready for a voyage, you could see old Sculpin's lip
Have a sort of nervous tremble, like a carter's long-leashed whip
Ere it cracks; and so the skipper's lip was trembling for an oath
At the watch on deck for idleness, the watch below for sloth.
For the leash of his anathemas was long enough for both.
