Читать книгу The Modern Traveller - Hilaire Belloc - Страница 5
II.
ОглавлениеPoor Henry Sin from quite a child,
I fear, was always rather wild;
But all his faults were due
To something free and unrestrained,
That partly pleased and partly pained
The people whom he knew.
Untaught (for what our times require),
Lazy, and something of a liar,
He had a foolish way
Of always swearing (more or less);
And, lastly, let us say
A little slovenly in dress,
A trifle prone to drunkenness;
A gambler also to excess,
And never known to pay.
As for his clubs in London, he
Was pilled at ten, expelled from three.
A man Bohemian as could be—
But really vicious? Oh, no!
When these are mentioned, all is said.
And then—Commander Sin is dead:
De Mortuis cui bono?
Of course, the Public know I mean
To publish in the winter.
I mention the intention in
Connection with Commander Sin;
The book is with the Printer.
And here, among the proofs, I find
The very thing I had in mind—
The portrait upon page thirteen.
Pray pause awhile, and mark
The wiry limbs, the vigorous mien,
The tangled hair and dark;
The glance imperative and hot,
That takes a world by storm:
All these are in the plate, but what
You chiefly should observe is
The—Did you say his uniform
Betrayed a foreign service?
Of course, it does! He was not born
In little England! No!
Beyond the Cape, beyond the Horn,
Beyond Fernando Po,
In some far Isle he saw the light
That burns the torrid zone,
But where it lay was never quite
Indubitably known.
Himself inclined to Martinique,
His friends to Farralone.
But why of this discussion speak?
The Globe was all his own!
Oh! surely upon such a birth
No petty flag unfurled!
He was a citizen of earth,
A subject of the world!
As for the uniform he bore,
He won it in the recent war
Between Peru and Ecuador,
And thoroughly he earned it.
Alone of all who at the time
Were serving sentences for crime,
Sin, during his incarceration
Had studied works on navigation;
And when the people learned it,
They promptly let him out of jail,
But on condition he should sail.
It marked an epoch, and you may
Recall the action in
A place called Quaxipotle bay?
Yes, both the navies ran away;
And yet, if Ecuador can say
That on the whole she won the day,
The fact is due to Sin.
The Fleet was hardly ten weeks out,
When somebody descried
The enemy. Sin gave a shout,
The Helmsmen put the ship about;
For, upon either side,
Tactics demanded a retreat.
Due west retired the foreign fleet,
But Sin he steered due east;
He muttered, “They shall never meet.”
And when, towards the close of day,
The foemen were at least
Fifteen or twenty miles away,
He called his cabin-steward aft,
The boldest of his men;
He grasped them by the hand; he laughed
A fearless laugh, and then,
“Heaven help the right! Full steam a-head,
Fighting for fighting’s sake,” he said.
Due west the foe—due east he steered.
Ah, me! the very stokers cheered,
And faces black with coal
And fuzzy with a five days’ beard
Popped up, and yelled, and disappeared
Each in its little hole.
Long after they were out of sight,
Long after dark, throughout the night,
Throughout the following day,
He went on fighting all the time!
Not war, perhaps, but how sublime!
Just as he would have stepped ashore,
The President of Ecuador
Came on his quarter deck;
Embraced him twenty times or more,
And gave him stripes and things galore,
Crosses and medals by the score,
And handed him a cheque,—
And then a little speech he read.
“Of twenty years, your sentence said,
“That you should serve—another week
“(Alas! it shames me as I speak)
“Was owing when you quitted.
“In recognition of your nerve,
“It gives me pleasure to observe
“The time you still had got to serve
“Is totally remitted.
“Instead of which these friends of mine”—
(And here he pointed to a line
Of Colonels on the Quay)—
“Have changed your sentence to a fine
“Made payable to me.
“No—do not thank me—not a word!
“I am very glad to say
“This little cheque is quite a third
“Of what you have to pay.”
The crew they cheered and cheered again,
The simple-loyal-hearted men!
Such deeds could never fail to be
Renowned throughout the west.
It was our cousins over sea
That loved the Sailor best,—
Our Anglo-Saxon kith and kin,
They doted on Commander Sin,
And gave him a tremendous feast
The week before we started.
O’Hooligan, and Vonderbeast,
And Nicolazzi, and the rest,
Were simply broken-hearted.
They came and ate and cried, “God speed!”
The Bill was very large indeed,
And paid for by an Anglo-Saxon
Who bore the sterling name of Jackson.
On this occasion Sin was seen
Toasting McKinley and the Queen.
The speech was dull, but not an eye,
Not even the champagne was dry.
Observe the face of William Jackson,
How typical an Anglo-Saxon!
