John Masefield

Fever-Chills

He tottered out of the alleyway with cheeks the colour of paste,
And shivered a spell and mopped his brow with a clout of cotton waste:
‘I’ve a lick of fever-chills,’ he said, ‘’n’ my inside it’s green,
But I’d be as right as rain,’ he said, ‘if I had some quinine,--
  But there ain’t no quinine for us poor sailor-men.

‘But them there passengers,’ he said, ‘if they gets fever-chills,
There’s brimmin’ buckets o’ quinine for them, ’n’ bulgin’ crates
   o’ pills,
’N’ a doctor with Latin ’n’ drugs ’n’ all--enough to sink a town,
’N’ they lies quiet in their blushin’ bunks ’n’ mops their gruel down,--
  But their ain’t none o’ them fine ways for us poor sailor-men.

‘But the Chief comes forrard ’n’ he says, says he, “I gives you
   a straight tip:
Come none o’ your Cape Horn fever lays aboard o’ this yer ship.
On wi’ your rags o’ duds, my son, ’n’ aft, ’n’ down the hole:
The best cure known for fever-chills is shovelling bloody coal.”
  It’s hard, my son, that’s what it is, for us poor sailor-men.’