Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/86

82 And in every ship of that whaling fleet was one wonderful story told,— How an Amber Whale had been seen that year that was worth a mint of gold. And one man—mate of a Scotchman—said he'd seen, away to the west, A big school of sperm, and one whale's spout was twice as high as the rest; And we knew that that was the Amber Whale, for we'd often heard before That his spout was twice as thick as the rest, and a hundred feet high or more. And often, when the look-out cried, 'He blows!' the very hail Thrilled every heart with the greed of gold,—for we thought of the Amber Whale.

"-But never a sight of his spout we saw till the season there went round. And the ships ran down to the south'ard to another whaling-ground.