English

No matter how the chances are,
—Nor when the winds may blow,
My Jerry there has left the sea
—With all its luck an' woe:
For who would try the sea at all,
—Must try it luck or no.

They told him—Lor', men take no care
—How words they speak may fall—
They told him blunt, he was too old,
—Too slow with oar an' trawl,
An' this is how he left the sea
—An' luck an' woe an' all.

Take any man on sea or land
—Out of his beaten way,
If he is young 'twill do, but then,
—If he is old an' gray,

Need from excess—excess from folly growing,
Keeps Christie's hammer daily, going, going!
Ill-omened prelude! whose dire knell brings on
Profusion's last sad dying speech—‘Gone! gone!’

My youth is
Made fast
To the dock
At Marseilles
Rotting away
With a chain to her mast.

She that saw slaughters
In foreign waters

She that was torn
With the winds off the Horn

She that was beached in the bleaching environs
Of sirens

She that rounded the Cape of Good Hope
With a rope's aid

She's fast there
Off the Cannebière

It's easy to see
She was frail in the knee
And too sharp in the bow—
You can see now.

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it—
Came out with a fortune last fall—
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all.

No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;

My love she was born in the north country wide,
Where's lofty hills and mountains all round on every side;
She's one of the fairest creatures that ever my eyes did see,
She exceeds all the maids in the north country.

My parents separated me and my dear,
Which caused me to weep and shed many a tear;
Asleep I do mourn, and awake I do cry,
And 'tis all for the sake of my darling I die.

Come saddle my horse that I may go ride
In search of my true love, let what will betide.
O'er lofty hills and mountains I'll wander and I'll rove

The Sun is on the Calabar, the Dawn is quenched in day
The stars of night are vanishing, her shadows flee away
The sandy plains of Etrei, flash back arising light
And The wild wastes of Northangerland, gleam bright as heaven is bright
Zamorna lifts her fruitful hills, like Edens to the sky,
And fair as Enna's field of flowers, her golden prairies lie
And Angria calls from mount, & vale from wood & heather dell,
A song of joy and thankfulness on rushing winds to swell
For Romalla has put his robe of regal purple on

Most holy Night, that still dost keep
The keys of all the doors of sleep,
To me when my tired eyelids close
Give thou repose.

And let the far lament of them
That chaunt the dead day's requiem
Make in my ears, who wakeful lie,
Soft lullaby.

Let them that guard the horned moon
By my bedside their memories croon.
So shall I have new dreams and blest
In my brief rest.

Fold thy great wings about my face,
Hide dawning from my resting-place,
And cheat me with your false delight,
Most Holy Night.

The moon is like a lamp,
The sun is like a fire,
The weathercock can see them both;
He sits upon the spire.

He sits upon the spire
High above the ground—
I'd like to be a weathercock
Turning round and round.

Methinks I draw but sickly breath:
Who knows but I
Before next night may sleeping lie,
Rock'd in the arms of death?

The swift-foot minutes pass away;
For Time hath wings,
That flag not for the breath of kings,
Nor brook the least delay.

And what a parcel of my sand
Is yet to pass,
Or what may break the crazy glass,
How shall I understand?

Then, base delights and dunghill joys!
Farewell, adieu!
While yet I live I'm dead to you,
And such-like toys.

Me Cupid made a Happy Slave,
A merry wretched Man,
I slight the Nymphs I cannot have,
Nor Doat on those I can.

This constant Maxim still I hold,
To baffle all Despair;
The Absent Ugly are and Old,
The Present Young and Fair.