Classic Poem

" And better there for her than at that inn he left her at to pine and watch the Royal Sovereign come swing
come smirk in sailor blue and star and meet the rain . "
" THE A MAZING M ARRIAGE "

Come swing, come smirk, in sailor blue and star,
And I, poor lad, dead as Balaam's donkey,
Nothing left but a coat and star
And anyone's face clapped on top of 'mdash.
I was a round chuck-penny for fortune. I was,
A fellow to straddle a quarter deck, step up step down,
Guns, and runs, and the wind's eye winking.
So I stood it, swallowing the harbour jauntings
Like so many puffs of cream,
And off to windward, clip at a black squall
With a snap of my fingers.
Now I'm the laughing-stock of a cat's-paw;
Come swing, come smirk, to every little sniff of air,
Sailor blue and star, up and down,
With my hinges squealing like a cracked serpent,
And every window behind mocking the sight of me
And my silly star, gone no one knows whither.
I was a man to stand the slash of hurricanes,
With a bowsprit of good metal spitting mouthfuls of water and liking it.
Come swing, come smirk now,
With the black rain snivelling down my front,
And the apple-faced sun wizening me to a cranberry.
Come swing, come smirk, all day long,
Watching a boy jabbing a goose-quill into paper,
By candle-light, when the moon fails,
And Zip! they go out of window like so many fire-balloons,
And some take the trees, and some foul the mud,
And some give me a pinch in passing.
Once I had a belly-ful of good sea-salt in me,
And a cocked hat of brine to brisk me up,
Me and my star;
Now I eat that fellow's ripped-up papers,
Whenever there's a breeze.
And the sight of him, red-haired ninny,
Sitting there with his head like a bonfire,
And his heart too, I daresay,
Is a bitterer thing to spy at than the march of a China Seas typhoon.
Come swing, come smirk, in sailor blue and star,
To catch the rain, and catch his papers,
Hot to blister the paint off me,
And the white rain spoiling 'mdash,
And the blue, morning rain sticking 'mdash together,
And I in the drift creaking my rust at the flight they make.

Faugh! I say,
This is a pretty heaven, this is!
Dead and gone and should be let lie,
Not swinging and smirking after other men's scribblings.
Sailor blue and star,
To tell the world here's an inn to stop at,
And a young fellow blazing his eyes blind in a worm-hole
After something he can't see.
Pretty world he's made for me to swing in,
Smirking at him with my star that's only paint
When the bells toll of a Sunday,
And a grinning churchyard underneath
Rots the man I was.
Can he cheat it when his time's come,
Or will he, too, be strung up on a pair of whining hinges,
Sailor blue and star, or something like it?
Ding-dong bell on a sign-board,
And the old goose gobbled full of papers
Waddling down to the ditch.
That's a song for a Sunday morning,
Come swing, come smirk, till your boards give way,
And you go to grind shoe-leather,
And the wind can't peck you from the dust.
Grand world, come swing, come smirk,
Baby Bunting world of painted nonsense,
Up and down to a scrape of rusty bearings
Like a man with a cold at the back of his nose;
Holy-ghost world with a star on it like a cold pancake,
And the devil's beer brewed of sick brains
Which should be let lie and aren't,
And go for the choking of geese
Laid out stark in a green ditch
Of a Sunday morning for the church-folk to see.