VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 19896, 15 June 1926, Page 6

VAGRANT VERSE

HAKLUYT UNPURCHASED.. Man is a fool and a bag of wind! Or was it madness that stopped me buying The old brown Hakluyt I chanced to find At twelve and sixpence, dustily lying With shilling shockers? An if ’twere here I’d kick off shoes and pull on slippers And settle back to my brier and beer For a windy voyage with Hakluyt’s skippers. Up the blue sea and down the sky To Java Head or warm CSpango, With albatrosses floating by And a wind that whistles of spice and mango; Into the ice with Frobisher’s men, Or south with Raleigh to seek Guiana, In the Jesus of Lubeck with Hawkins then To plunder the dons of smug Habana, And east. . . But my ale is dregs and lees, My pipe won’t draw, and I, besotted, The sport of devils—l failed to seize On the rich old tome till another got it. And so, instead of an offshore gale And a tropical sea and a lion dapper, I sit and blow at my mug of ale And stare at my toe through a toeless dipper. r-by Franklyn McDufiee, m The Miaptic Months