Oh, the clean skins of them,
and the clear eyes, the straight backs and full chests of them!
Brave men they was, and bold men surely! We'd be sailing out,
bound down round the Horn maybe. We'd be making sail in the dawn,
with a fair breeze, singing a chanty song wid no care to it. And
astern the land would be sinking low and dying out, but we'd give
it no heed but a laugh, and never a look behind. For the day that
was, was enough, for we was free men--and I'm thinking 'tis only
slaves do be giving heed to the day that's gone or the day to come
--until they're old like me. [With a sort of religious
exaltation.] Oh, to be scudding south again wid the power of the
Trade Wind driving her on steady through the nights and the days!
Full sail on her! Nights and days! Nights when the foam of the
wake would be flaming wid fire, when the sky'd be blazing and
winking wid stars. Or the full of the moon maybe. Then you'd see
her driving through the gray night, her sails stretching aloft all
silver and white, not a sound on the deck, the lot of us dreaming
dreams, till you'd believe'twas no real ship at all you was on but
a ghost ship like the Flying Dutchman they say does be roaming the
seas forevermore widout touching a port. And there was the days,
too. A warm sun on the clean decks.
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