Written for the Royal Sailors’ Orphan Girls’ School and Home, Hampstead
“MARINER, mariner, home from the sea,
What has your tall ship brought for me?”
“Oh, we’ve brought you wool and we’ve brought you wheat,
And there’s fish coming in from the drifter fleet:
For a cruiser watched that we all sailed free,
And guarded the mariners home from the sea.”
“Mariner, mariner, home from the sea,
What was the price that you paid for me?”
“Oh, we paid the price that we’ve always paid,
That you go well clad with your hunger stayed:
For a messmate lies where the deep seas be,
And sleeps, like a mariner home from the sea.”
“Mariner, mariner, home from the sea,
What of the debt that is due from me?”
“There’s a babe that he’s leaving that’s in your care,
Your bread’s from the waters, so cast some there,
And you’ll find it again one day may be,
All blessed by a mariner home from the sea.”
There's a voice
... the breeze has spoken strangers, with a stirring tale to tell,
And a thousand eager voices flung the challenge out to sea:
"Come they hither in the old way, in the only way that's free?"
And the flying Breeze called softly: "In the old way . . ."
