A hurly-burly, hurl-wind
Is hurrying o’er the waves;
Before it runs the Girl-wind
Fresh up from the Ocean caves.
She’s the little puff who goes before
To tell of the blow that’s coming,
She sounds like a hive when winters o’er
And you hear the bees a-humming.
It’s all very well when a young girl can
Come tripping along with laughter;
But not so nice when you see the old man
With a big stick coming after.
It’s just the same with Everything
When pleasure runs before us,
You drink your wine and think it’s fine:—
Then comes the tavern scoreus!
So we went forth upon our different ways—
And these were wide—to many a distant shore:
I to my home to put in form these lays,
And think upon this strange wild sailor-lore,
In which, to him who reads with generous heart,
As in a museum we seem to see
The strangest relics gathered far apart—
Rude, coarse, and rough, yet touched with poetry;
Like shells and gems and coins of olden time,
And worthless stones, all hardened in a mass,
Such as I’ve seen, fished from the ocean’s slime,
Such are these men and melodies—alas!
They all are of an age half past away.
Where is the boatswain now?—who hears his call?
And where these sailing packets once so gay?
I to myself do seem traditional
And all my youth a legend—so to say—
Yet well or ill I’ve done the best I could
To make in truthful song a little show
Of quaint old tales, now little understood,
Of the North End of Boston—long ago.