FullReads

(Time, Evening.)

JOHN.

‘Tis a calm pleasant evening, the light fades away,
And the Sun going down has done watch for the day.
To my mind we live wonderous well when transported,
It is but to work and we must be supported.
Fill the cann, Dick! success here to Botany Bay!

RICHARD.

Success if you will,–but God send me away.

JOHN.

Ah! you lubberly landsmen don’t know when you’re well;
Hadst thou known half the hardships of which I can tell!
The sailor has no place of safety in store–
From the tempest at sea, to the press-gang on shore!
When Roguery rules all the rest of the earth,
God be thanked in this corner I’ve got a good birth.
Talk of hardships! what these are the sailor don’t know!
‘Tis the soldier my friend that’s acquainted with woe,
Long journeys, short halting, hard work and small pay,
To be popt at like pidgeons for sixpence a day!–
Thank God! I’m safe quarter’d at Botany Bay.

JOHN:

Ah! you know but little! I’ll wager a pot
I have suffer’d more evils than fell to your lot.
Come we’ll have it all fairly and properly tried,
Tell story for story, and Dick shall decide.

SAMUEL:

Done.

JOHN:

Done. ‘Tis a wager and I shall be winner;
Thou wilt go without grog Sam to-morrow at dinner.

SAMUEL:

I was trapp’d by the Serjeant’s palavering pretences,
He listed me when I was out of my senses.
So I took leave to-day of all care and all sorrow
And was drill’d to repentance and reason to-morrow.

JOHN:

I would be a sailor and plough the wide ocean,
And was soon sick and sad with the billow’s commotion.
So the Captain he sent me aloft on the mast,
And curs’d me, and bid me cry there–and hold fast!

SAMUEL:

After marching all day, faint and hungry and sore,
I have lain down at night on the swamps of the moor,
Unshelter’d and forced by fatigue to remain.
All chill’d by the wind and benumb’d by the rain.

JOHN:

I have rode out the storm when the billows beat high
And the red gleaming lightnings flash’d thro’ the dark sky,
When the tempest of night the black sea overcast
Wet and weary I labour’d, yet sung to the blast.

SAMUEL:

I have march’d, trumpets sounding–drums beating–flags flying,
Where the music of war drown’d the shrieks of the dying,
When the shots whizz’d around me all dangers defied,
Push’d on when my comrades fell dead at my side,
Drove the foe from the mouth of the Cannon away,
Fought, conquer’d and bled, all for sixpence a day.

JOHN:

And I too friend Samuel! have heard the shots rattle,
But we seamen rejoice in the play of the battle;
Tho’ the chain and the grape-shot roll splintering around,
With the blood of our messmates tho’ slippery the ground,
The fiercer the fight, still the fiercer we grow,
We heed not our loss so we conquer the foe.
And the hard battle won, so the prize be not sunk,
The Captain gets rich, and the Sailors get drunk.

SAMUEL:

God help the poor soldier when backward he goes
In disgraceful retreat thro’ a country of foes!
No respite from danger by day or by night
He is still forced to fly, still o’ertaken to fight,
Every step that he takes he must battle his way,
He must force his hard meal from the peasant away;
No rest–and no hope, from all succour afar,
God forgive the poor Soldier for going to the war!