Rudyard Kipling

Frankie's Trade

  Old Horn to All Atlantic said:
      (A-hay O! To me O!)
  "Now where did Frankie learn his trade?
  For he ran me down with a three-reef mains'I."
      (All round the Horn!)

  Atlantic answered:--"Not from me!
  You'd better ask the cold North Sea,
  For he ran me down under all plain canvas."
      (All round the Horn!)

  The North Sea answered: -- "He's my man,
  For he came to me when he began--
  Frankie Drake in an open coaster.
      (All round the Sands!)

  "I caught him young and I used him sore,
  So you never shall startle Frankie more,
  Without capsizing Earth and her waters.
      (All round the Sands!)
            
  "I did not favour him at all.
  I made him pull and I made him haul--
  And stand his trick with the common sailors.
      (All round the Sands!)

  "I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind,
  And kicked him home with his road to find
  By what he could see in a three-day snow-storm.
      (All round the Sands!)

  "I learned him his trade o' winter nights,
  'Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights,
  On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing.
      (All round the Sands!)

  "Before his beard began to shoot,
  I showed him the length of the Spaniard's foot--
  And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later.
      (All round the Sands!)

  "If there's a risk which you can make,
  That's worse than he was used to take
  Nigh every week in the way of his business;
      (All round the Sands!)

  "If there's a trick that you can try,
  Which he hasn't met in time gone by,
  Not once or twice, but ten times over;
      (All round the Sands!)

  "If you can teach him aught that's new,
      (A-hay O! To me O!)
  I'll give you Bruges and Niewport too,
  And the ten tall churches that stand between
      Storm along, my gallant Captains!
      (All round the Horn!)