Classic Poem

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,
A month will be a year to him.
—Be all to him you may.

He sits by me, but most he walks
—The door-yard for a deck,
An' scans the boat a-goin' out
—Till she becomes a speck,
Then turns away, his face as wet
—As if she were a wreck.

I cannot bring him back again,
—The days when we were wed.
But he shall never know—my man—
—The lack o' love o bread,
While I can cast a stitch or fill
—A needleful o' thread.

God pity me, I'd most forgot
—How many yet there be,
Whose goodmen full as old as mine
—Are somewhere on the sea,
Who hear the breakin' bar an' think
—O' Jerry home an'—me.