Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/49

Rh In flame beneath the tropics,

In frost upon the floe,

And jeopardy of every wind

That does between them go.

And some we got by purchase,

And some we had by trade,

And some we found by courtesy

Of pike and carronade,

At midnight, 'mid-sea meetings,

For charity to keep,

And light the rolling homeward-bound

That rode a foot too deep.

By sport of bitter weather

We're walty, strained, and scarred

From the kentledge on the kelson

To the slings upon the yard.

Six oceans had their will of us

To carry all away—

Our galley's in the Baltic,

And our boom's in Mossel Bay!