Devonport

I saw two sailors in Devonport city,

Their bones were of shell and their eyes were marine.

"Never forget," said the one to the other,

"The deeds we have done and the sights we have seen."

As they came down Ker Street by Devonport Column,

By the Egyptian and Oddfellows' Hall,

No sound was heard from the Nile-voiced oracle,

Beak-faced, indifferent, marching the wall.

In the Old Chapel I sat with my doxy,

Down came the sun with its streamers of gin,

Down by the Forum a blind-fingered fiddler

Felt for a tune that was crazy as sin.

Empty the gallows-rope blew on the morning,

Empty your heart when you wake up in bed,

Stare in despair at the face there beside you,

Find that, like you, it is dead, it is dead.

I went down Fore Street, the summer descending,

Turning my voice on the rim of the tide,

"Do you recall how we three sailed together?"

"We never heard of you, mister,!" They cried.

"Swore that whenever misfortune befell us

Nothing should sever the word I now speak?"

Only the wind shoving down from the Dockyard

Troubled the waters about Stonehouse Creek.

Lightly they walked on the lap of the morning,

Their hair was of pitch and their tongues sweet as tar,

While high in the heaven a love-killed old kitehawk

Bawled on the blue like an opera star.

Blithely o blithely the casual morning

Burned life away as the leaf on a tree,

Rolling the sun like a mad hoop beside me,

And down at the end of the alley, the sea.

By

Charles Causley