Illustration by Joseph Lee from 'Work-a-day Warriors' by Joseph Lee, published in 1917
THE DERELICT
THE SEA
A NIGHT WATCH ABOVE
My soul is sick for the sea,For the scudding ships,For the rollers racing free,For the winds that sting like whips,For the winds that sting like whips,For the winds that smack like wine:O for a good ship on the sea,If that good ship were mine.
Here is the night-watch set,And here do I take my stand,Doing my spell at the parapetWith my eye fixed on No Man's Land;With my eye set on No Man's Land,With my eye on that waste o' Hell,But my heart alert for the full sail's fretAnd the boom of the old ship bell.
I set my soul on an outward bound,And I set the course by a star;But I miss the swell beneath my feet.As she noses for over the bar,As she rises and dips at the bar,As she pauses to sniff the gale;To-night I would circle the whole world roundWith never a shorten sail!
I stand on the firing-step,As I've stood on the fo'c'sle-head,And I think of the sailors drowned I've known,And the soldiers I've known who are dead,Of my mates over there who are dead,Of my mates who are graved in the sea,And I think that if God gave me choice of graves,I know what my choice would be!
The spindrift smites my face,As there comes the lashing of rain,And the gale whistles through the top-gallantsLike the cry of a soul in pain,Like the cry of a soldier slain?—Or a mariner in the sea?—Ah! if God would but give me choice of death,I know what my choice would be!
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