VAGRANT VERSE
THE “OLD SALTS” LAMENT. (Written for the Southland Timee.) I skippered a barque on the China run, And have sailed in wooden ships, Lived in the heat of the Tropic sun And starved where the ice floe grips. I have screwed in wool ’neath a woode deck, Trimmed well a cargo of coal. Worked day and night on a grinding wreck, At the edge of a rocky shoal. I have dreamed wild dreams of a bom* ashore But never have ceased to roam ; In fifty days from the Cape to Nor?, I sailed the old “Sheba” Home. Now I’m getting old—just a dimming lamp —Too old at fifty-eight, Pm offered a job on a “Geordie” tramp, To serve as a second mate. But I have stuck to sail with such a love, That knows no other call Then the shrieking gale in the spars above. Where the topsails rise and fall. R. WeateUa. Bluff, July A.
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Bibliographic details
Southland Times, Issue 19291, 9 July 1924, Page 4
Word Count
158VAGRANT VERSE Southland Times, Issue 19291, 9 July 1924, Page 4
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