Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/210

198 note in the whole book that he sees fit to close. 'The Galley Slave,' the last of the ditties, comes very near being a splendid poem. It has eight or nine verses, which can be quoted as the most powerful expression of the heart and soul of the true Anglo-India which has yet been sung or said for the instruction of 'a sheltered people.'

'Oh, gallant was our galley, from her carven steering-wheel To her figure-head of silver and her beak of hammered steel; The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air, But no galley in the water with our galley could compare.

'Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold— We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold; The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below, As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.

'It was merry in the galley; for we revelled now and then— If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men! As we snatched her thro' the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss. And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lover's kiss. ...

'Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we— The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea! By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and sheered, Woman, man, or God, or devil, was there anything we feared?