A Pier-Head Chorus

Oh I'll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread,

And dancing with the stars to watch, upon the fo'c's'le head,

Hearkening to the bow-wash and the welter of the tread

Of a thousand tons of clipper running free.

For the tug has got the tow-rope and will take us to the Downs,

Her paddles churn the river-wrack to muddy greens and browns,

And I have given river-wrack and all the filth of towns

For the rolling, combing cresters of the sea.

We'll sheet the mizzen-royals home and shimmer down the Bay,

The sea-line blue with billows, the land-line blurred and grey;

The bow-wash will be piling high and thrashing into spray,

As the hooker's fore-foot tramples down the swell.

She'll log a giddy seventeen and rattle out the reel,

The weight of all the run-out line will be a thing to feel,

As the bacca-quidding shell-back shambles aft to take the wheel,

And the sea-sick little middy strikes the bell.

From SALT WATER POEMS AND BALLADS, John Masefield, published by The Macmillan Co., NY, © 1912, p. 51.A classic "outward bound" poem!"Salted horse" is how the sailors often refered to the preserved meat they were served."River-wrack" is a British term for seaweed and other stuff floating in the river."Rattle out the reel" is a reference to how the speed of a sailing ship used to be determined with the log-line.Charley Noble