‘Crossing the equator.
Arrived in Rio Grande.’ (1888)
Set sail from Spain April 24th,
arrived in Rio Grande after sixty nights at sea.
Discharged our cargo and proceeded up
the Port de Lego River for a load of horn,
hides and tallow, arriving July 10th.
In Pelotas fresh meat went for three cents a pound,
apples could be had for a good song
or a chew of hard tobacco and
we drew water over the side for all purposes.
Once our cargo was secured, the Port de Lego
carried us back to Rio Grande, groves of
green trees on the shore bowed so low
you could pick fruit from the branches
as we sailed beneath them; ripe oranges
went ungathered, dropping straight into the water
and floating downstream beside the ship.
When I was a boy I went aboard every boat
that sailed into Twillingate just to hear
the sailors talk; there was a man from Devonshire
claiming sight of countries where fruit is
as plentiful as cod on a Grand Bank shoal,
it seemed too fanciful a notion to put much faith in.
We stood on deck with buckets and nets
and we dipped them from the river by the hundred,
eating till we were sick of sweetness, stowing
the rest below for the voyage back to London.
‘Arrived in Hong Kong, November 9.
The histories of China.’ (1888)
Sailed into the harbour early morning
and made our ship fast to the old stone quay,
the Chinese coming down in hundreds to greet us –
a queer lot to look at I guess,
the men wearing braided pigtails
and the women stepping as if
they were walking on glass,
their stunted feet bound tight as a reefed sail
Went ashore after tea and received some peculiar looks
though I was turned out as well as a sailor can manage;
stopped into a bar where I checked myself
in the glass and found no fault to speak of,
perhaps it was my ears
they were staring at
Dusk when I found my way back to the waterfront
and three parts drunk by then,
fourteen thousand miles from Newfoundland
to the east and west
and can get no further from my home if I wanted –
two thousand years before the birth of Christ
the Emperor Yu divided this empire
into nine provinces and etched
their borders on nine copper vessels . . .
The stars came out over the Pacific then
and they came out over me,
only twenty-six years old and all the histories
of China at my back
‘The Fearnot of Liverpool’ (1889)
On October 16th we passed a large bark
dismasted and abandoned on open water,
the main and mizzen down and
no sign of life, we lay alongside
several hours but could not launch
our boats to get aboard her
as there was a heavy sea running
and she was as good as fifty years away.
Finally we turned to and left her
adrift, with only our own stories
of what might have happened to ship
and crew troubling our sleep.
Continued without incident until
the 26th when I was on my way to rouse
the third officer for morning watch
and there was a shout of man overboard.
We cast out the life buoys and
launched the lifeboat, pulling around
in the darkness until eight o’clock
before giving him up for lost.
Put the ship on course and we were
now running one man short.
He’d done the work himself and jumped
though no one could say his reason
or what was in his head to send him
over the side in weather
calm as a dream of home.
‘Arrived in Odessa, Russia.
Bonaparte at Moscow.’ (1889)
Winter defeated Napoleon.
Moscow razed by Russia’s defenders
to deprive the advancing army
of food and shelter,
not enough wood left among
the ash of the city
to make a proper fire.
November fell like a building
hollowed by flame.
Hands and feet of the retreating soldiers
scorched by frostbite,
exposed skin of their faces
dead to the touch.
Three hundred thousand men fell to
the cold and to hunger
on the long march out of Russia,
their frozen bodies on
the roadside like a knotted string
being unravelled all the way
back to France.
And Moscow standing again now,
spired and magnificent,
as if Napoleon had never lived.
‘In a great row and got locked up.’ (1890)
You may have all the pleasure here that
you need and you may get it as rough
as you please if you are not careful.
Lying near Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn
I went ashore with the other quartermasters,
a Cockney and a Belgian,
falling in with a crowd of bunker boys
at a barroom and drinking in the usual way
when a big row rose up that washed over
the entire crowd assembled,
bottles, trays, and glasses flying
as if the room was being rocked by a gale.
My two shipmates got the worst of the play
that was started on me, the Belgian’s nose
was broken and blood all down his front
when we met up again near the ship,
and they blamed me for raising the ruckus
when I had all I could do to get clear
with a whole skin. The Belgian brandished
a knife and the Cockney did nothing
to discourage him when he swore he would
take my life right there in the street,
so I pulled out my revolver and fired.
Four policemen arrived thereafter and
they put me aboard the Black Mary to
take me to the lockup, I said “Boys
I never enjoy a decent ride except
when I am driving with you,”
they said I wouldn’t think so by
the time I got through with this affair.
Next morning I was taken before the Judge,
the two quartermasters and others were there
to give their evidence which was not
in my favour. The Judge asked if I was
guilty of the charge and I told him yes,
the Belgian had come at me with his knife
and I burned the skin of his forehead with a bullet,
upon which evidence the case was dismissed,
self-defence being the first point of law in America.
The Belgian and me took the day off
to go across the bridge to New York
where we had a jolly time of it since
sailors hold no malice, and then we sailed
back to England as friendly as ever
with a pleasant smile.
‘Observatory on Mount Pleasant’ (1890)
Paid off a ship in Saint John, New Brunswick,
and no work to be had until I got word
of a building going up in Mount Pleasant.
The foundation already down
&nbs
p; when I arrived and the foreman
took me on as soon as I mentioned
being several years on the tall ships.
It was twenty storeys high when we finished,
and I was sent up the pole to hook the block
and hoist the framing for each floor.
Each time up I could see more of
Lily Lake at the foot of the mountain,
the crooked arms of the apple trees
laid out in orchard rows,
and there was always a handful of nuns
saying the rosary outside the convent below.
I waved in their direction from every storey
but they went on praying as if they hadn’t seen me,
perhaps it was my safety
they were bringing to God’s attention.
Stayed on until the place opened in October
and the night before I shipped out
they sat me in the chair beneath
a telescope the size of a humpback –
for the first time I saw constellations
the way a saint perceives the divine,
almost clear of darkness.
When I carted my tools down the hill
those stars came with me, a branch of
ripe fruit almost close enough to touch.
‘A hard looking sight but not lost.’ (1890)
Now I have been on board some hard ships
but this one takes the lead of them all.
They say there was six men killed on her last voyage,
the Captain changed her name and still
could not entice a soul aboard before
my chum and me took a chance and signed on.
We sailed into Bath Bay and took on
a load of ice, leaving again October 22nd.
The following day a wind came up with rain and thunder
so we clewed up the foremain and mizzen topsails
and had two reefs in the mainsail when a squall
blew up and carried the works off in strips.
The Captain stood to the wheel shouting orders,
we let go the halyards to lower the foresail
and take in reefs but the ropes burst or
jammed around the peak block and the foresail
blew away in ribbons, along with the three jibs.
Only the spanker managed to stay up and
the Captain hove to, keeping her underway in
the storm so as to not be drifting for shore.
The sea came across the decks and took the rail,
the bulwarks and part of the upper bridge,
all hands were engaged at the pumps to keep
her afloat; there was no food or sleep to be had,
the galley and forecastle were saturated and
the fresh water spoiled, the men getting laid up
one after another with sprains and exhaustion
as we lay in that condition seventy-four hours and it would
try the nerve of a mule to endure so long without rest.
When the wind moderated we got her fitted up
as best we could, mustering some old sails
stored below, bending a mainsail for a foresail
and making way for Boston, swearing we’d never set foot
on a boat again if we were able to gain the harbour.
By the time the weather ceased there was only the Chief Mate,
myself and the Captain left sound to manage the ship
and we shimmied her safe up to the pier at last,
a hard-looking sight by then, but not lost.
‘Taking photographs.’ (1891)
Carried photographical outfit aboard
for a voyage to Cape Town,
having purchased my own from
Mr. Waites’ shop in London
where I worked several months
between voyages while lodging
at Lady Ashburton’s House
Second week out I sketched off
the Captain, Chief Engineer and Mate
on the starboard side
and now have all I can do to
keep up taking pictures,
the passengers willing to pay me well
for my trouble
Two days off South Africa
met the four-master on which I first
crossed the pond, the Konigsburg
bound for England –
managed a decent portrait of her,
broad side and set with full sail
so even if the oceans take her now
she is mine to keep
‘Now in Africa among the Natives.’ (1891)
In vain with loving kindness
the gifts of God are strown,
the heathen in his blindness
bows down to wood and stone.
Sketches in the old mission letters suggested
these people were grey, charcoaled,
unhappy shadows slumped and frowning.
I see now they are something altogether different –
skin the colour of stained wood
and teeth bright as the keys of a church organ;
hair as rich a black as peat moss, their voices
musical and muscular, echoing thunder and rain
God’s will is God’s will and if I once pretended to
comprehend a portion I have since given up the lie;
I’ve kept good company on Africa’s shore,
on the white beaches of Brazil, in China and Ceylon,
it confuses me to have shared the kindness
of liquor and song with these when some
brought up under the sound of the Gospel would
see you dead before offering a drink of water
I thought the world would make me a wiser man,
but I am merely more perplexed –
I’ve learned to distrust much of what I was taught before
my travels showed me different;
the faces of Africa are as dark as a night without stars,
but they are not as blind as they are pictured
‘A narrow escape almost but saved.’ (1892)
Aboard a Scotch boat shipping a cargo of
marble and alabaster across the Gulf of Lyons.
Three days out we came on a perfect gale,
the seas running above the mastheads
and the Captain had us clew up the topsails,
haul in the jibs and bring down the mainsail to reef it tight.
I was running out on the boom to make fast the outer jib
when the ship dropped away like a gallows door
and came up hard on a swell, chucking me
fifteen feet into the air and overboard;
I was lost but for falling into the outer jib whips
rolled four feet underwater by the gale,
like a dip net after capelin.
I hung fast to a rope as the ship rolled back,
got hold of the martingale whisker
and heaved myself in over the bowsprit to see the Captain
running about the deck with a life buoy
shouting he had lost a man.
We had a fine laugh about it afterwards –
when I climbed back aboard, they said, my face was as white
as the four-ton blocks of marble we had wedged in the hold.
But I don’t remember being afraid when I fell,
only the certainty of knowing I was about to be drowned
a thousand miles from home,
and then the jib whip in my hands,
the peculiar darkness of discovering
there is nothing that is certain.
I came out of the water a different man than I had been
though I would be hard pressed to say the difference.
The scar of that rope on my palms
for weeks after the storm had passed.
‘Useful information, the Holy Lands’ (1893)
Desert the colour of winter sunligh
t,
a yellow that is almost white, shadowless,
constant shift of sand like
a tide swell beneath your feet.
Hills on the horizon as red as blood.
The Commandments carried down Mount Sinai
by Moses in sandals, his feet blistered
by the heat of God’s presence,
lettered stone scorched by the sun,
his bare hands burning.
All of this was once under water –
mountains rose from the parting flood
like the Israelites
marching out of the Red Sea
to walk parched into wilderness,
sucking moisture from handfuls
of hoarfrost.
I have spent my life on the ocean,
seven years now I have worked
on the high seas,
my hands blistered by the water’s salt,
my tongue thick and dry as leather.
The desert was familiar to me,
I knew something of what it
demands of a person,
what it can teach.
I understood that it is mostly thirst
that makes a place holy.
· Understanding the Heart, 1894–1935 ·
‘When I started trading.’ (1894)
In seven years sailing I laid eyes
on the rocks of Newfoundland but twice,
skirting Cape Race shoals for Halifax
and again on the way to Boston,
looking away as quick as that
on both occasions;
I could hear her singing across the water
and stopped up my ears,
I suppose I knew I’d never be able
to leave a second time
Intending a brief visit to family last fall
I married a woman in Tomwalls Harbour,
paying the old priest three dollars
to splice us; she held me like a tree
grown through a wire fence
and I could not get away in the spring
though I said that was what I wanted
Bought a sloop and started trading
wood and coal and dry goods
around the Bay of Exploits,
gave up the sea for memories
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