Christmas at Sea
by Robert Louis Stevenson
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked
hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce
could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the
sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only
things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of
day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill
we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a
shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go
about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head
and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no
further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and
dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to
head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the
tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head
close aboard:
So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers
running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass
against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean
foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every 'longshore
home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys
volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went
about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty
jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all
days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas
morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house
where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces
there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver
hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of
homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon
the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was
of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went
to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of
way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed
Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to
fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the
captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first
mate, Jackson, cried.
. . . "It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,"
he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were
new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she
understood.
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the
night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the
light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board
but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to
sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and
the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were
growing old.
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