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Christmas At Sea
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| by Robert Louis Stevenson |
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The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked
hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen
scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing
squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers
were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf
a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only
with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We
tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head
and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets,
and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity,
in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature
we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South
a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But
every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers
running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with
his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the
village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red
fires were burning bright in every 'long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed
out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel
went about.
The bells upon the church were rung
with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I
should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This
day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where
I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the
pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles,
my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight,
like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the
china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And
well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of
me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that
went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every
kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes
on blessed Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light,
and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant
sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll
never stand it," our first mate Jackson, cried.
..."It's
the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were
new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just
as though she understood.
As the winter's day was
ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the
weary headland, and passed below the light.
And
they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but
me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome
out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the
darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving
home and my folks were growing old. |
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