POETRY.
THE LONG ROAD HOME.
THIRRes a wind up and a sighing along the waterside, And we're homeward bound at last upon to-night's full tide : Round the world and back again is very far to roam . . And San Juan Strait to England, it's a long road home !
We'll tow out to Flattery before the sun is high : We'll shake the harbour dust away and give the land good-bye : And singing in her topsails 0, the deep-sea wind'll come And lift us through it lively on the long road home.
The old man he goes smiling, for he's gathered in a crew; We've various Turks and infidels, we've most things but a Jew : He's got the pick of all the stiffs from Panama to Nome . And we'll make 'era into sailors on the long road home.
The leaves that just are open now, they'll have to fade and fall, There'll be reaping-time and threshing-time and ploughing-time and all ;
But we'll not see the harvest-fields nor smell the fresh-cut loam; We'll be rolling gunwale ender on the long road home. — We've waited for a cargo and we've waited for a crew,
And last we've waited for a tide, and now the waiting's through'; O don't you hear the deep-sea wind and smell the deep-sea foam, Out beyond the harbour on the long road home ?
And it's "home, dearie, home," when the anchor rattles down In the reek of a good old Mersey fog a-rolling rich and brown. . Round the vrorld and back again is very far to roam, And all the way to England ire a long road home !
C. Fox SMITS.
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