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Title: Frankie's Trade
Author: Rudyard Kipling [
More Titles by Kipling]
Old Horn to All Atlantic said:
_(A-hay O! To me O!')_
'Now where did Frankie learn his trade?
For he ran me down with a three-reef mains'le.'
_(All round the Horn!)_
Atlantic answered:--'Not from me!
You'd better ask the cold North Sea,
For he ran me down under all plain canvas.'
_(All round the Horn!)_
The North Sea answered:--'He's my man,
For he came to me when he began--
Frankie Drake in an open coaster.
_(All round the Sands!)_
'I caught him young and I used him sore,
So you never shall startle Frankie more,
Without capsizing Earth and her waters.
_(All round the Sands!)_
'I did not favour him at all.
I made him pull and I made him haul--
And stand his trick with the common sailors.
_(All round the Sands!)_
'I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind.
And kicked him home with his road to find
By what he could see in a three-day snow-storm
_(All round the Sands!)_
'I learned him his trade o' winter nights,
'Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights
On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing.
_(All round the Sands!)_
'Before his beard began to shoot,
I showed him the length of the Spaniard's foot--
And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later.
_(All round the Sands!)_
'If there's a risk which you can make.
That's worse than he was used to take
Nigh every week in the way of his business;
_(All round the Sands!)_
'If there's a trick that you can try,
Which he hasn't met in time gone by,
Not once or twice, but ten times over;
_(All round the Sands!)_
'If you can teach him aught that's new,
_(A-hay O! To me O!)_
I'll give you Bruges and Niewport too,
And the ten tall churches that stand between 'em.'
_Storm along my gallant Captains!_
_(All round the Horn!)_
[The end]
Rudyard Kipling's poem: Frankie's Trade
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