Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/46

24 Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adventurers—

Fettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity:

'Ho, we revel in our chains

O'er the sorrow that was Spain's;

Heave or sink it, leave or drink it, we were masters of the sea!'

Up spake the soul of a gray Gothavn 'speckshioner—

(He that led the flinching in the fleets of fair Dundee):

'Oh, the ice-blink white and near,

And the bowhead breaching clear!

Will Ye whelm them all for wantonness that wallow in the sea?'

Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners,

Crying: 'Under Heaven, here is neither lead nor lea!

Must we sing for evermore

On the windless, glassy floor?

Take back your golden fiddles and we'll beat to open sea!'