Might Have Been

“If I was a bloke as could paint,” Bill said, “which I ain’t, Lord! The pictures I’d do Of ships runnin’ free In the Tropics, or flyin’ like stags Down the Forties; an’ seas, white an’ blue, In the Trades, or like cliffs in a blow Off the Leeuwin, or calm After storm, an’ the dawn comin’ solemn an’ slow Like a psalm . . . . Ports too, Full o’ funnels an’ flags, I’d do, If I was a chap as could paint,” Said Bill, “but I ain’t. Or if I’d the knack of the pen” (Bill said) “like some men, lord! The yarns I could spin About the queer places I’ve bin To an’ the queer things as I’ve seen an’ I’ve done ‘Most everywhere under the sun: a picnic we ‘ad in a copper ore barque out o’ Bristol, when the skipper went mad an’ started in pickin’ the watch for a lark off the yard with a pistol, till the second mate managed to catch him a clout with a handspike, an that laid him out good an’ proper, an’ ended his bother . . . . then the time when we roasted an’ froze both together in a ship with her cargo alight off Cape Stiff in the worst of his weather; for it snowed an’ it blowed a fair fright an’ the deck got that ‘ot we was ‘oppin’ around like a hen on a griddle - an’ then come a ship by as tuk us off just in time, ‘fore she blowed up an’ bust . . . . an’ yarns about cannibal isles, where they sharpen their teeth up with files ‘Case they dish up for tea some hard-cased old shellback, like me an’ ship wrecks an’ shanghai-ing too I could tell - and a few On ‘em true, If I had the trick o’ the pen,” Bill said, “like some men. But all as I done wi’ the brush In my puff Ain’t been much Only touching up bulwarks and such, Or slung overside in the sun Or aloft with a bucket o’ slush, An’ the mate comin’ sneakin’ be’ind An’ growlin’, ‘No holidays mind, Ye sons o’ sea-cooks!’ . . . . An the schoolin’ I ‘ad As a lad Was enough For to learn me to sign Ships’ articles, forty-odd year Far an’ near ‘Stead o’ makin’ my mark . . . . An’ that’s ‘ow it is there’ll be nobody now to read all them books, or to see them pictures as might ha’ been mine - only me . . . . “