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Rudyard Kipling - The Ballad of `Bolivar`
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Seven men from all the world back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink `fore we sign away —
We that took the BOLIVAR out across the Bay!
 
We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
 We put back to Sunderland `cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland — met the winter gales —
 Seven days and seven nights to The Start we drifted.
    Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,
    All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,
    Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray —
    Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!
 
One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by;
 Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo`c`sle short;
Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly;
 Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.
    Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul;
    Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll;
    Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray —
    So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay!
 
`Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she`d break;
 Wondered every time she raced if she`d stand the shock;
Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake;
 Hoped the Lord `ud keep His thumb on the plummer-block.
    Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal;
    Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul;
    `Last we prayed she`d buck herself into judgment Day —
    Hi! we cursed the Bolivar knocking round the Bay!
 
O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still —
 Up and down and back we went, never time for breath;
Then the money paid at Lloyds` caught her by the heel,
 And the stars ran round and round dancin` at our death!
    Aching for an hour`s sleep, dozing off between;
    `Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green;
    `Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play —
    That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay!
 
Once we saw between the squalls, lyin` head to swell —
 Mad with work and weariness, wishin` they was we —
Some damned Liner`s lights go by like a grand hotel;
 Cheered her from the Bolivar swampin` in the sea.
    Then a greybeard cleared us out, then the skipper laughed;
    "Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell — rig the winches aft!
    Yoke the kicking rudder-head — get her under way!"
    So we steered her, pully-haul, out across the Bay!
 
Just a pack o` rotten plates puttied up with tar,
In we came, an` time enough, `cross Bilbao Bar.
    Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we
    Euchred God Almighty`s storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!
 
Seven men from all the world back to town again,
Rollin` down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Seven men from out of Hell.  Ain`t the owners gay,
`Cause we took the "Bolivar" safe across the Bay?
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