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The strong salt winds at Liverpool
That sweep across the Bay
Once brought the great proud ships of old
With teak from Mandalay,
With bars of gold from lands untold,
With cloves from Zanzibar,
With tea and jute from Chittagong
And rubber from Para;
Trim figure-head and snowy sail,
Tall mast and tapered spar,
A rhythmic shanty from the waist,
The smell of Stockholm tar.
Whilst yet the fog bells clang and drone
And eyes are tired and red
With peering over weather cloths
To see what looms ahead;
Or Summer shakes her train of gold
And dawn breaks slow, supreme,
With funnels red and funnels white
Reflected in the stream;
The times have changed on Merseyside,
The years have travelled on,
And ugly ducklings plough and sheer
Where once there sailed a swan.
Safe anchored in a land-locked bay,
Washed by some river cool,
They lie at rest in fairer ports
Than even Liverpool;
Forgotten, garlanded with mist,
They drowse at anchor there,
Whilst wraiths of bearded sailormen
Patrol each poop and stare;
Borne faintly on an eerie wind
There goes a bosun's call,
scraping as dim yards come round,
The clacking of a pall.
Then idly, these tall ships will turn
And hearken to the breeze
That whispers in the ghostly shrouds
Of days remote from these;
Remembering weeks of driving sleet
And high seas round the Horn,
And little islands, silver-rimmed,
Where mollyhawks are born;
Recalling long, cool, fragrant nights
Beneath a Southern moon;
The "Rio Grande" or" Shenandoah"
To a concertinas tune.
Yet often, just before the dawn,
They see in dreams afar
The glimmer of the Crosby Light
And rain across the Bar.
JOHN E. M. SUMNER