A GREAT while ago, there was a school-boy.

He lived in a cottage by the sea.

And the very first thing he could remember

Was the rigging of the schooners by the quay.

He could watch them, when he woke, from his window,

With the tall cranes hoisting out the freight.

And he used to think of shipping as a sea-cook,

And sailing to the Golden Gate.

For he used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls,

And read them where he fished for conger eels,

And listened to the lapping of the water,

The green and oily water round the keels.

There were trawlers with their shark-mouthed flat-fish,

And red nets hanging out to dry,

And the skate the skipper kept because he liked ’em,

And landsmen never knew the fish to fry.

There were brigantines with timber out of Norroway,

Oozing with the syrups of the pine.

There were rusty dusty schooners out of Sunderland,

And ships of the Blue Cross line.

And to tumble down a hatch into the cabin

Was better than the best of broken rules;

For the smell of ’em was like a Christmas dinner,

And the feel of ’em was like a box of tools.

And, before he went to sleep in the evening,

The very last thing that he could see

Was the sailor-men a-dancing in the moonlight

By the capstan that stood upon the quay.

He is perched upon a high stool in London.

The Golden Gate is very far away.

They caught him, and they caged him, like a squirrel.

He is totting up accounts, and going grey.

He will never, never, never sail to ’Frisco.

But the very last thing that he will see

Will be sailor-men a-dancing in the sunrise

By the capstan that stands upon the quay....

To the tune of an old concertina,

By the capstan that stands upon the quay.

JUST as the moon was rising, I met a ghostly pedlar

Singing for company beneath his ghostly load,—

Once, there were velvet lads with vizards on their faces,

Riding up to rob me on the great North Road.

Now, my pack is heavy, and my pocket full of guineas

Chimes like a wedding-peal, but little I enjoy

Roads that never echo to the chirrup of their canter,—

The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.

Rogues were they all, but their raid was from Elf-land!

Shod with elfin silver were the steeds they bestrode.

Merlin buckled on the spurs that wheeled thro’ the wet fern

Bright as Jack-o’-Lanthorns off the great North Road.

Tales were told in country inns when Turpin rode to Rippleside!

Puck tuned the fiddle-strings, and country maids grew coy,

Tavern doors grew magical when Colonel Jack might tap at them,

The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.

What are you seeking then? I asked this honest pedlar.

—O, Mulled Sack or Natty Hawes might ease me of my load!—

Where are they flown then?—Flown where I follow;

They are all gone for ever up the great North Road.

Rogues were they all; but the white dust assoils ’em!

Paradise without a spice of deviltry would cloy.

Heavy is my pack till I meet with Jerry Abershaw,

The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.