"I was bat seven year alld
Fan my mider she did dee,
My father marr{.e}d the ae warst woman
The wardle did ever see.

"For she has made me the lailly worm
That lays att the fitt of the tree,
An o my sister Meassry
The machrel of the sea.

"An every Saterday att noon
The machrl comes to me,
An she takes my layl{.e} head,
An lays it on her knee,
An keames it we a silver kemm,
An washes it in the sea.

"Seven knights ha I slain

In the dawn of the day, when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sunrise above,
I set forth, with a heart full of courage and mirth,
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a Poet I met on the way,
Which cross-road would lead me aright,
And he said: "Follow me, and ere long you will see
Its glistening turrets of Light."

And soon in the distance a city shone fair;
"Look yonder," he said, "there it gleams!"
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the Kingdom of Dreams.

In Thule lived a monarch,

Still faithful to the grave,
To whom his dying mistress

A golden goblet gave.

Beyond all price he deem'd it,

He quaff'd it at each feast;
And, when he drain'd that goblet,

His tears to flow ne'er ceas'd.

And when he felt death near him,

His cities o'er he told,
And to his heir left all things,

But not that cup of gold.

A regal banquet held he

In his ancestral ball,
In yonder sea-wash'd castle,

'Mongst his great nobles all.

There stood the aged reveller,

'Twas on Friday the 2nd of March, in the year of 1894,
That the Storm Fiend did loudly laugh and roar
Along the Black Isle and the Kessack Ferry shore,
Whereby six men were drowned, which their friends will deplore.

The accident is the most serious that has occurred for many years,
And their relatives no doubt will shed many tears,
Because the accident happened within 200 yards of the shore,
While Boreas he did loudly rail and roar.

The ferry-boat started from the north or Black Isle,
While the gusty gales were blowing all the while

'The Keeping'



By
Charles L. East






Unto my keeping
wert thou given me,
that I might love thee
with all my soul
to the end of my days…
and adore thee in the autumn of my years.

I have loved thee beyond life's measure,
beyond the treasures of the earth or sea
or the boundless reaches of the deepening sky.

If the sun should quietly rise
upon a dreaded day…
and thy final sleeping mercifully unburden
the hours from me,
my futile weeping shall only cease

"An Unqualified Pilot"


Once a pair of savages found a stranded tree.
(One-piecee stick -pidgin -- two piecee man.
Straddle-um-paddle-um-push -um off to sea.
That way Foleign Debbil-boat began.)
But before, and before, and ever so long before
Any shape of sailing-craft was known,
The Junk and Dhow had a stern and a bow,
And a mast and a sail of their own--ahoy! alone!
As they crashed across the Oceans on their own!

Once there was a pirate-ship, being blown ashore--
(Plitty soon pilum up, s'posee no can tack..

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, `You'll all be drowned!'
They called aloud, `Our Sieve ain't big,
But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig!
In a Sieve we'll go to sea!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

It's good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it's best, the coming home,
The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!
You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You've seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!

Perhaps you're counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like you stride . . . and then
There comes a pause, a shining hour,
A dog that leaps, a hand that clings:

I

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,
And I had but a single coat, and not a single care;
When I would feast right royally on bacon, bread and beer,
And dig into a stack of hay and doze like any peer;
When I would wash beside a brook my solitary shirt,
And though it dried upon my back I never took a hurt;
When I went romping down the road contemptuous of care,

The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs;
and the flowers were all merry by the roadside;
and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds
while we busily went on our way and paid no heed.

We sang no glad songs nor played;
we went not to the village for barter;
we spoke not a word nor smiled;
we lingered not on the way.
We quickened our pace more and more as the time sped by.

The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade.