Page:Collected poems vol 2 de la mare.djvu/67

 "Though here I've sailed a score of years,
 * And heard 'em, dream or wake,

Lap small and hollow 'gainst my cheek,
 * On sand and coral break;

"'Yet now,' my leetle son, says I,
 * A-drifting on the wave,

'That land I see so safe and green,
 * Is England, I believe.

"'And that there wood is English wood,
 * And this here cruel sea,

The selfsame old blue ocean
 * Years gone remembers me.

"'A-sitting with my bread and butter
 * Down ahind yon chitterin' mill;

And this same Marinere' — (that's me),
 * 'Is that same leetle Will! —

"'That very same wee leetle Will
 * Eating his bread and butter there,

A-looking on the broad blue sea
 * Betwixt his yaller hair!'

"And here be I, my son, thrown up
 * Like corpses from the sea,

Ships, stars, winds, tempests, pirates past,
 * Yet leetle Will I be!"