11 quotes
We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead.
The Seven Seas (1896)
'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.
The Seven Seas (1896)
They change their skies above them,
But not their hearts that roam!
The Seven Seas (1896)
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!
The Seven Seas (1896)
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift—life's none so long.
The Seven Seas (1896)
There's a Legion that never was 'listed,
That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
Is breaking the road for the rest.
The Seven Seas (1896)
But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night:—
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!
The Seven Seas (1896)
The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds—
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs;
But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun',
They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!
The Seven Seas (1896)
Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again:
Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant,
Out o' the cold an' the rain.
The Seven Seas (1896)
When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!
The Seven Seas (1896)
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readin' done,
An' turn another—likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
The Seven Seas (1896)