Page:Poems Cook.djvu/87

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE YOUNG MARINERS.
Bred up beside the rugged coast, three brothers bold were we;
Wild urchin mariners, who knew no play-place but the sea:
We spurn'd all space the earth could give the valley, hill, and field;
The main, the boundless main alone, our reckless sports could yield.
We long had borrow'd sail and skiff,—obliged to be content
With any crazy, sluggard hull, that kindly fisher lent:
At last our spirits, like our limbs, all strong and broad had grown;
And all our thoughts were centred in "a vessel of our own!"

The eldest-born, our hope and pride, the brightest of the three,
Had enter'd on the busy world, a sturdy shipwright he;
And mighty project fill'd our heads—we sat in council sage,
With earnest speech and gravity beseeming riper age:

71