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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 a deck, 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!
Oh! 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 Lloyd`s 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 greyback 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, pulley-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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