To drink Madeira wi' three Earls-the auld Fleet

Engineer,

That started as a boiler-whelp-when steam and he were low.

I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow.

Ten pound was all the pressure then-Eh! Eh!— a man wad drive;

An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder' fifty-five!

We're creepin' on wi' each new rig-less weight an' larger power:

There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an

hour!

Thirty an' more.

steam began

What I ha' seen since ocean

Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what

about the man?

The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million

mile o' sea:

...

Four time the span from earth to moon. How far, O Lord, from Thee?

That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon ?

It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the

saloon.

Three feet were on the stokehold floor-just slappin' to an' fro

An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks

to show.

Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns-deep in my soul an' black,

An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back.

The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the seas,

Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. . . . Forgie's our trespasses.

Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze,

The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel

stays;

Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill my cup o' wrong

Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong-Kong!

Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I

abode

Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road!

An' waur than all-my crownin' sin-rank blasphemy an' wild..

I was not four and twenty then-Ye wadna judge a child?

I'd seen the Tropics first that run-new fruit, new

smells, new air

How could I tell-blind-fou wi' sun-the Deil was lurkin' there ?

By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes;

By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies,

In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets

An ijjit grinnin' in a dream-for shells an' parra

keets,

An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried

Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put over

side.

Till, off Sumbawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a landbreeze ca'

Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "McAndrews, come awa'!"

Firm, clear an' low-no haste, no hate-the ghostly whisper went,

Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argu

ment:

"Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel',

"Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell.

"They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt,

"A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt,

"Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red

hot rod,

"But come wi' Us" (Now, who were They?) "an' know the Leevin' God,

"That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest,

"But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast."

An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice

For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice.

'Twas on me like a thunderclap-it racked me through an' through

Temptation past the show o' speech, unnamable

an' new

The Sin against the Holy Ghost? . . . An' under all, our screw.

That storm blew by but left behind her anchorshiftin' swell,

Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell.

Third on the Mary Gloster then, and first that night in Hell!

Yet was Thy hand beneath my head: about my feet Thy care

Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o'

despair,

But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer!

We dared na run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire,

An' I was drowzin' on the hatch-sick-sick wi' doubt an' tire:

"Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire!

Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs-again, an' once again,

When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'-chain;

An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty

plain.

Light on the engine-room—no more-clear as our carbons burn.