Shipmate Sorrow

I was shipmates with Sorrow in a day gone by; We shared the wheel and look-out, old Sorrow and I: Good times and bad times, foul weather and fair, The old grey face of him was always there. There was never shanty raised there, never song I heard, But his voice would be in it like a crying bird; I was dull in the dog watches when the laugh went free Because of old Sorrow sitting down by me. I thought I could lose him in the stir and change Of bright wicked cities all sunlit and strange; There came a hand at my elbow and a voice in my ear - It was patient Sorrow saying: 'Lad, I'm here!' And by the bustling harbour, up the busy street, Many a time I see him, many a time I meet The old grey face there of one I used to know . . . And it's old shipmate Sorrow out of long ago. And the watch at the halliards, they may sing with a will, But the voice I used to hear, oh I think I hear it still, Like the wind in a shroud piping, or a seabird's cry . . . And it's old Sorrow singing out of times gone by!