And they yarn along together just as jolly as you please,
Lordly liner, dingy freighter rusty-red from all the seas,
Of their cargoes and their charters and their harbours East and West,
And the coal-hulk at her moorings, she is yarning with the best,
Telling all the same tales over many and many a time she's told,
In a voice that's something creaky now because she's got so old,
Like some old broken sailorman when drink has loosed his tongue
And his ancient heart keeps turning to the days when he was young.
Is it but the chuckling mutter of the tide along the buoys,
But the creak of straining cables, but the night wind's mournful noise,
Sighing with a rising murmur in among the ropes and spars,
Setting every shroud and backstay singing shanties to the stars?
No, the ships they all are yarning, just the same as sailors do,
Just the same as deep-sea sailors from Port Talbot to Chefoo,
Yarning through the hours of darkness till the daylight comes again,
But oh! the things they speak of no one knows but sailormen.
C. F. S.
* * * * *
[Illustration: =WORTH A TRIAL.
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