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"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
 Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?" 
 Not with this wind blowing, and this tide. 

"Has any one else had word of him?"
 Not this tide. 
 For what is sunk will hardly swim, 
 Not with this wind blowing, and this tide. 

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?" 
 None this tide,
 Nor any tide,
 Except he did not shame his kind– 
 Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide. 

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Imperious wool-booted sage
  Though your years as men reckon are Three
You are wiser than ten times your age,
  And your faithfullest servants are we.

Oh fluffy Philosopher small
  You can't read our rhymes it is true,
For dinner and play is your All
  And Creation is—you!

You cry for the moon and—you get it, 
  You laugh and our spirits have mirth,
And the least of your orders we set it 
  O'er everything else upon earth.

We know we are older—we may be 
  More wise than yourself O my sweet
But today you are Queen of us Baby
  And we come with our gifts to your feet.

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I thank you Mrs Colvin
for the fruits in juice disolvin'
& I ate the grapes and oranges with will
& I'd like another basket 
Any time I choose to ask it,
& I'm always yours sin [cerely Mrs Hill.]

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1 
In extended observation of the ways and works of man,
From the Four-mile Radius roughly to the Plains of Hindustan: 
I have drunk with mixed assemblies, seen the racial ruction rise, 
And the men of half Creation damning half Creation's eyes.
2
I have watched them in their tantrums, all that Pentecostal crew, 
French, Italian, Arab, Spaniard, Dutch and Greek, and Russ and Jew,
Celt and savage, buff and ochre, cream and yellow, mauve and white,
But it never really mattered till the English grew polite;
3
Till the men with polished toppers, till the men in long frock-coats,
Till the men who do not duel, till the men who war with votes, 
Till the breed that take their pleasures as Saint Lawrence took his grid,
Began to "beg your pardon" and—the knowing croupier hid. 
4
Then the bandsmen with their fiddles, and the girls that bring the beer,
Felt the psychological moment, left the lit Casino clear; 
But the uninstructed alien, from the Teuton to the Gaul, 
Was entrapped, once more, my country, by that suave, deceptive drawl.
5
As it was in ancient Suez or 'neath wilder, milder skies,
I "observe with apprehension" how the racial ructions rise; 
And with keener apprehension, if I read the times aright, 
Hear the old Casino order: "Watch your man, but be polite. 
6
“Keep your temper. Never answer (that was why they spat and swore).
Don't hit first, but move together (there's no hurry) to the door. 
Back to back, and facing outward while the linguist tells 'em how—
'Nous sommes allong ar notre batteau, nous ne voulong pas un row.'"
7
So the hard, pent rage ate inward, till some idiot went too far... 
"Let 'em have it!" and they had it, and the same was merry war—
Fist, umbrella, cane, decanter, lamp and beer-mug, chair and boot—
Till behind the fleeing legions rose the long, hoarse yell for loot. 
8
Then the oil-cloth with its numbers, like a banner fluttered free; 
Then the grand piano cantered, on three castors, down the quay; 
White, and breathing through their nostrils, silent, systematic, swift—
They removed, effaced, abolished all that man could heave or lift. 
9
Oh, my country, bless the training that from cot to castle runs—
The pitfall of the stranger but the bulwark of thy sons—
Measured speech and ordered action, sluggish soul and unperturbed,
Till we wake our Island-Devil—nowise cool for being curbed! 
10
When the heir of all the ages "has the honour to remain,"
When he will not hear an insult, though men make it ne'er so plain,
When his lips are schooled to meekness, when his back is bowed to blows—
Well the keen aas-vogels know it—well the waiting jackal knows. 
11
Build on the flanks of Etna where the sullen smoke-puffs float—
Or bathe in tropic waters where the lean fin dogs the boat—
Cock the gun that is not loaded, cook the frozen dynamite—
But oh, beware my Country, when my Country grows polite!

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1 
There's a little red-faced man,
              Which is Bobs,
Rides the tallest 'orse 'e can- 
              Our Bobs. 
If it bucks or kicks or rears, 
'E can sit for twenty years 
With a smile round both 'is ears- 
              Can't yer, Bobs?  
2 
Then 'ere's to Bobs Bahadur -
              little Bobs, Bobs, Bobs! 
E's our pukka Kandahader- 
              Fightin' Bobs, Bobs, Bobs! 
E's the Dook of Aggy Chel;
E's the man that done us well, 
An' we'll follow 'im to 'ell 
              Won't we, Bobs?  
3 
If a limber's slipped a trace, 
              'Ook on Bobs. 
If a marker's lost 'is place, 
              Dress by Bobs. 
For 'e's eyes all up 'is coat, 
An' a bugle in 'is throat, 
An' you will not play the goat 
              Under Bobs.  
4 
E's a little down on drink, 
              Chaplain Bobs; 
But it keeps us outer Clink 
              Don't it, Bobs? 
So we will not complain 
Tho' ‘e’s water on the brain, 
If 'e leads us straight again- 
              Blue-light Bobs.  
5 
If you stood 'im on 'is head, 
              Father Bobs, 
You could spill a quart of lead 
              Outer Bobs.
'E's been at it thirty years 
An-amassin' souveneers 
In the way o' slugs an' spears- 
              Ain't yer, Bobs?  
6 
What 'e does not know o' war, 
              Gen'ral Bobs, 
You can arst the shop next door- 
              Can't they, Bobs? 
Oh, 'e's little but he's wise, 
'E's terror for 'is size, 
An–'e-does-not-advertise- 
              Do yer, Bobs?  
7 
Now they've made a bloomin' Lord 
              Outer Bobs, 
Which was but 'is fair reward- 
              Weren't it, Bobs? 
So 'e'll wear a coronet 
Where 'is 'elmet used to set; 
But we know you won't forget- 
              Will yer, Bobs?  
8 
Then 'ere's to Bobs Bahadur-
              little Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, 
Pocket-Wellin'ton 'an arder 
              Fightin' Bobs, Bobs, Bobs! 
This ain't no bloomin' ode,
But you've 'elped the soldier's load, 
An' for benefits bestowed, 
              Bless yer, Bobs!

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1 
Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
   Was good beyond all earthly need;
But, on the other hand, her spouse
   Was very, very bad indeed.
He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
And raced - but this she did not know. 
2 
For Belial Machiavelli kept
   The little fact a secret, and,
Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
   Jane Austen did not understand
That Lilly - thirteen-two and bay
Absorbed one-half her husband's pay. 
3 
She was so good, she made him worse;
   (Some women are like this, I think;)
He taught her parrot how to curse,
   Her Assam monkey how to drink.
He vexed her righteous soul until
She went up, and he went down hill. 
4 
Then came the crisis, strange to say,
    Which turned a good wife to a better.
A telegraphic peon, one day,
   Brought her - now, had it been a letter
For Belial Machiavelli, I
Know Jane would just have let it lie. 
5 
But 'twas a telegram instead,
   Marked "urgent," and her duty plain 
To open it. Jane Austen read:
    "Your Lilly's got a cough again.
Can't understand why she is kept
At your expense." Jane Austen wept. 
6 
It was a misdirected wire.
   Her husband was at Shaitanpore.
She spread her anger, hot as fire,
   Through six thin foreign sheets or more.
Sent off that letter, wrote another
To her solicitor - and mother. 
7 
Then Belial Machiavelli saw
   Her error and, I trust, his own,
Wired to the minion of the Law,
   And travelled wifeward - not alone.
For Lilly -  thirteen-two and bay -
Came in a horse-box all the way. 
8 
There was a scene - a weep or two - 
   With many kisses. Austen Jane
Rode Lilly all the season through,
   And never opened wires again.
She races now with Belial. This
Is very sad, but so it is.

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I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim -
Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!
Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied.
I shall go under by morning, and - Put that nurse outside.
'Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn,  (5)
And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn.
Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too,
I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned if I made you.
Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three -
Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea!  (10)
Fifty years between' em, and every year of it fight,
And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite:
For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness - what was it the papers had?
"Not the least of our merchant-princes." Dickie, that's me, your dad!   
I didn't begin with askings. I took my job and I stuck;    (15)
I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck.
Lord, what boats I've handled - rotten and leaky and old -
Ran 'em, or - opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told.     
Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud turn you grey,  
And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way. (20)
The others they dursn't do it; they said they valued their life
(They've served me since as skippers). I went, and I took my wife.
Over the world I drove 'em, married at twenty-three,  
And your mother saving the money and making a man of me.
I was content to be master, but she said there was better behind;    (25)
She took the chances I wouldn't, and I followed your mother blind.
She egged me to borrow the money, an' she helped me to clear the loan,
When we bought half-shares in a cheap 'un and hoisted a flag of our own.     
Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how,
We started the Red Ox freighters - we've eight-and-thirty now. (30)
And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were clipper-freights,
And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died in Macassar Straits -
By the Little Patemosters, as you come to the Union Bank -  
And we dropped her in fourteen fathom: I pricked it off where she sank.
Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was christened for her, (35)
And she died in the Mary Gloster. My heart; how young we were!
So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran her ashore,
But your mother came and warned me and I would't liquor no more:
Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I'd think,     
Saving the money (she warned me), and letting the other men drink. (40)
And I met M'Cullough in London (I'd saved five 'undred then),
And 'tween us we started the Foundry - three forges and twenty men.
Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. It paid, and the business grew;
For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that was a gold mine too.  
"Cheaper to build 'em than buy 'em;" I said, but M'Cullough he shied, (45)
And we wasted a year in talking before we moved to the Clyde.
And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of us started fair,
Building our engines like houses and staying the boilers square.
But M'Cullough 'e wanted cabins with marble and maple and all,  
And Brussels an' Utrecht velvet, and baths and a Social Hall,   (50)
And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the frames too light,
But M'Cullough he died in the Sixties, and - Well, I'm dying to-night...
I knew - I knew what was coming, when we bid on the Byfleet's keel -
They piddled and piffled with iron, I'd given my orders for steel!     
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid, (55)
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade!
And they asked me how I did it; and I gave 'em the Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,  
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind. (60)
Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side;
He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died.
I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print;
And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a hint.           
(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what his drawings meant;  (65)
And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me sixty per cent.
Sixty per cent with failures, and more than twice we could do,
And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all for you!
I thought - it doesn't matter - you seemed to favour your ma, 
But you're nearer forty than thirty, and I know the kind you are. (70)
Harrer an' Trinity College! I ought to ha' sent you to sea -
But I stood you an education, an' what have you done for me?
The things I knew was proper you wouldn't thank me to give,
And the things I knew was rotten you said was the way to live.  
For you muddled with books and pictures, an' china an' etchin's an' fans.  (75)
And your rooms at college was beastly - more like a whore's than a man's;
Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone,
An' she gave you your social nonsense; but where's that kid o' your own?
I've seen your carriages blocking the half o' the Cromwell Road,   
But never the doctor's brougham to help the missus unload. (80)
(So there isn't even a grandchild, an' the Gloster family's done.)
Not like your mother, she isn't. She carried her freight each run.
But they died, the pore little beggars! At sea she had 'em - they died.
Only you, an' you stood it. You haven't stood much beside.   
Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier's whelp    (85)
Nosing for scraps in the galley. No help - my son was no help!
So he gets three 'undred thousand, in trust and the interest paid.
I wouldn't give it you, Dickie - you see, I made it in trade.
You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no child,  
It all comes back to the business. 'Gad, won't your wife be wild!   (90)
'Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up to 'er eye:
"Daddy! dear daddy's dyin'!" and doing her best to cry.
Grateful? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep her away from here.
Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, women are queer.   
There's women will say I've married a second time. Not quite!   (95)
But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers'll fight.
She was the best o' the boiling - you'll meet her before it ends.
I'm in for a row with the mother - I'll leave you settle my friends.
For a man he must go with a woman, which women don't understand -  
Or the sort that say they can see it they aren't the marrying brand.(100)
But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still;
I'm going to up and see her, without its hurting the will.
Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you,
If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do.    
They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can; (105)
And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't it a man?)
There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough tried -
Marbles and mausoleums - but I call that sinful pride.
There's some ship bodies for burial - we've carried 'em, soldered and packed,    
Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody called them cracked.  (110)
But me - I've too much money, and people might . . . All my fault:
It come o' hoping for grandsons and buying that Wokin' vault...
I'm sick o' the 'ole dam' business. I'm going back where I came.
Dick, you're the son o' my body, and you'll take charge o' the same!   
I want to lie by your mother, ten thousand mile away,      (115)
And they'll want to send me to Woking; and that's where you'll earn your pay.
I've thought it out on the quiet, the same as it ought to be done -
Quiet, and decent, and proper - an' here's your orders, my son.
You know the Line? You don't, though. You write to the Board, and tell   
Your father's death has upset you an' you're going to cruise for a spell, (120)
An' you'd like the Mary Gloster - I've held her ready for this -
They'll put her in working order and you'll take her out as she is.
Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and laid her aside
(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies!) - the boat where your mother died,  
By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank,   (125)
We dropped her - I think I told you - and I pricked it off where she sank.
['Tiny she looked on the grating - that oily, treacly sea -]
'Hundred and Eighteen East, remember, and South just Three.
Easy bearings to carry - Three South-Three to the dot;  
But I gave McAndrew a copy in case of dying - or not. (130) 
And so you'll write to McAndrew, he's Chief of the Maori Line
They'Il give him leave, if you ask 'em and say it's business o' mine.
I built three boats for the Maoris, an' very well pleased they were,
An I've known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew me - and her.  
After the first stroke warned me I sent him the money to keep (135)
Against the time you'd claim it, committin' your dad to the deep;
For you are the son o' my body, and Mac was my oldest friend,
I've never asked 'im to dinner, but he'll see it out to the end.
Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar! I've heard he's prayed for my soul,  
But he couldn't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve before he stole.  (140)
He'll take the Mary in ballast - you'll find her a lively ship;
And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on 'is wedding-trip,
Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three port-holes wide,
The kick o' the screw beneath him and the round blue seas outside!  
Sir Anthony Gloster's carriage - our 'ouse-flag flyin' free -     (145)
Ten thousand men on the pay-roll and forty freighters at sea!
He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleetin' show,
And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom the same as he ought to go -
By the heel of the Paternosters - there isn't a chance to mistake -  
And Mac'll pay you the money as soon as the bubbles break!    (150)
Five thousand for six weeks' cruising, the staunchest freighter afloat,
And Mac he'll give you your bonus the minute I'm out o' the boat!
He'll take you round to Macassar, and you'll come back alone;
He knows what I want o' the Mary . . . . I'll do what I please with my own.  
Your mother 'ud call it wasteful, but I've seven-and-thirty more; (155)
I'll come in my private carriage and bid it wait at the door...
For my son 'e was never a credit: 'e muddled with books and art,
And e' lived on Sir Anthony's money and 'e broke Sir Anthony's heart.
There isn't even a grandchild, and the Gloster family's done -  
The only one you left me - O mother, the only one!   (160)
Harrer and Trinity College - me slavin' early an' late -
An' he thinks I'm dying crazy, and you're in Macassar Strait!
Flesh o' my flesh, my dearie, for ever an' ever amen,   
That first stroke come for a warning. I ought to ha' gone to you then.
But - cheap repairs for a cheap 'un - the doctor said I'd do.  (165)
Mary, why didn't you warn me? I've allus heeded to you,
Excep' - I know - about women; but you are a spirit now;  
An', wife, they was only women, and I was a man. That's how.
An' a man 'e must go with a woman, as you could not understand;
But I never talked 'em secrets. I paid 'em out o' hand. (170)
Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies! Now what's five thousand to me,
For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven where I would be?   
I believe in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible plain,
But I wouldn't trust 'em at Wokin'; we're safer at sea again.
For the heart it shall go with the treasure - go down to the sea in ships. (175)
I'm sick of the hired women. I'll kiss my girl on her lips!
I'll be content with my fountain. I'll drink from my own well,  
And the wife of my youth shall charm me - an' the rest can go to Hell!
(Dickie, he will, that's certain.) I'll lie in our standin'-bed,
An' Mac'll take her in ballast - an' she trims best by the head...(180)
Down by the head an' sinkin', her fires are drawn and cold,
And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of the empty hold -  
Churning an' choking and chuckling, quiet and scummy and dark -
Full to her lower hatches and risin' steady. Hark!
That was the after-bulkhead. . . . She's flooded from stem to stern... (185)
'Never seen death yet, Dickie? . . . Well, now is your time to learn!

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