Classic Poem

Up with the royals that top the white spread of her!
Press her and dress her, and drive through the foam;
The Island's to port, and the mainland ahead of her;
Hey for the Warner and Hayling and Home!

" Bo'sun, O Bo'sun, just look at the green of it!
Look at the red cattle down by the hedge!
Look at the farmsteading — all that is seen of it,
One little gable end over the edge! "

" Lord! the tongues of them clattering, clattering,
All growing wild at a peep of the Wight;
Aye, sir, aye, it has set them all chattering,
Thinking of home and their mothers to-night. "

Spread the topgallants — oh, lay them out lustily!
What though it darken o'er Netherby Combe?
'Tis but the valley wind, puffing so gustily —
On for the Warner and Hayling and Home!

" Bo'sun, O Bo'sun, just see the long slope of it!
Culver is there, with the cliff and the light.
Tell us, oh tell us, now is there a hope of it?
Shall we have leave for our homes for to-night? "

" Tut, the clack of them! Steadily! Steadily!
Aye, as you say, sir, they're little ones still;
One long reach should open it readily,
Round by St. Helens and under the hill.

" The Spit and the Nab are the gates of the promise,
Their mothers to them — and to us it's our wives.
I've sailed forty years, and — — By God it's upon us!
Down royals, down top'sles — down, down, for your lives! "

A grey swirl of snow with the squall at the back of it,
Heeling her, reeling her, beating her down!
A gleam of her bends in the thick of the wrack of it,
A flutter of white in the eddies of brown.

It broke in one moment of blizzard and blindness;
The next, like a foul bat, it flapped on its way.
But our ship and our boys! Gracious Lord, in your kindness,
Give help to the mothers who need it to-day!

Give help to the women who wait by the water,
Who stand on the Hard with their eyes past the Wight.
Ah! whisper it gently, you sister or daughter,
" Our boys are all gathered at home for to-night. "