page 3

A Dockside Elegy.

I waited at two score of ports
When my Jack sailed the sea.
From wind and wave and creaking hawse
He always came tack to me.

Sure, he had many a breezy whore
On those long nights away;
The dockside pub was his run ashore
And he boozed up all his pay.

A buoy drifts on the water,
My Jack lies under.

He was a man, was my man,
With a tattoo on his chest,
But those nights he was my sailor-boy
When his head lay on my breast.

Full of his South Sea marvels
And tales of the Golden Gate,
He said when he ended his travels
I'd be his true messmate.

A buoy drifts on the water,
My Jack lies under.

page 4

Jack sweated in the stokehole
Of many a stinking tub,
He said, with his quiet chuckle.
"I've sweated more in the pub."

Now the pubs and whores won't have him
And no more will I,
Only the dirty weather,
The sea, and the empty sky.

A buoy drifts on the water,
My Jack lies under.

The same old ships sail homeward,
Foghorns sound the winter mist.
In my heart' s harbour only
Will Jack be missed.

The lean derricks are rusting,
The thickset weeds have grown.
The parlour won't need dusting,
For my Jack won't be home.

A buoy drifts on the water,
My Jack lies under.

- Charles Doyle.