Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/57

Rh Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode—

Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road!

An' waur than all—my crownin' sin—rank blasphemy an' wild.

I was not four and twenty then—Ye wadna judge a child?

I'd seen the Tropics first that run—new fruit, new smells, new air—

How could I tell—blind-fou wi' sun—the Deil was lurkin' there?

By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes;

By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies,

In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets—

An ijjit grinnin' in a dream—for shells an' parrakeets,

An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried—

Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside.