Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/89

When the captain shouted, 'Swing the boats, and be ready to lower away!'
Then, 'A pull on the weather-braces, men! let her head fall off three points!'
And off she swung, with a quarter-breeze straining the old ship's joints.
The men came down from the mastheads; and the boats' crews stood on the rail.
Stowing the lines and irons, and fixing paddles and sail.
And when all was ready we leant on the boats and looked at the Amber's spout,
That went up like a monster fountain, with a sort of a rumbling shout.
Like a thousand railroad engines puffing away their smoke.
He was just like a frigate's hull capsized, and the swaying water broke
Against the sides of the great stiff whale: he was steering south-by-west,—
For the Cape, no doubt, for a whale can shape a course as well as the best.