Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/149

Rh For if our lingo sounds so strange, What could you do without us?

The merchant in his warehouse proud Whould wait awhile we trow, Before to sell his cotton bales He'd rig a boat and row,

And how would all his ladies fret, For eastern toys and teas, Unless our sails we sharply set Across the Indian seas?

The farmer toils to plant his corn, And then to hill and hoe it, An honest-hearted man is he, His sun-burnt features show it,

Yet when he takes his grain to town, With loads of golden cheese, And buys those notions from the shops His womankind that please, 13*