Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
The Ballad of the Bolivar
S
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 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.
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!
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.
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!
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!
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!
Up and down and back we went, never time for breath;
Then the money paid at Lloyd’s caught her by the keel,
And the stars ran round and round dancin’ at our death!
’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!
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.
“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!
In we came, an’ time enough, ’cross Bilbao Bar.
Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we
Euchred God Almighty’s storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!
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?