The Rival Crews

STARBOARD WATCH

On, a right wind is blowing, a spring tide is flowing, Fresh mates have signed on, a tried hand's at the helm. Let us no longer wallow in doldrum and shallow,

But launch on the blue sea the ship of the realm. It's as dark as the dickens with home-roosting chickens, Our treasure's all spent and our powder runs low: But though rigging be rotten, our skill's not forgotten, And courage mounts higher the harder it blow.

So heave at your bootstraps to pull yourselves up, And if the shoe pinches, don't sit down and yelps But bite on the bullet, drain deep the harsh cup,

And with smiles take a liberal dose of self-help.

LARBOARD WATCH

Give no heed to these boasters, fit only for coasters,

It's nothing they know of deep-watermen's toil. They're self-overrated, inflated, outdated, And think to play sail in an era of oil.

It's measures not manning, not manners but planning,

That saved us from rocks to the East and the West. We're the new navigators, surveyors, MercatOrs ;

Their grandest design's a cigar-dream at best.

Beware these gunboatmen, who never have learned That seamanship changes decade by decade. We've explored every avenue, left no stone unturned, And we still urge a liberal dose of State aid.

MIDDLE WATCH

Though our numbers are fewest, our seamanship's truest ; We make up in faith what we're wanting in force. Now leaning to larboard, now canting to starboard, We keep the ship trimmed, her head on the due course.

Not rhumb-line nor thumb-line we follow, but plumb-line ; We tread the same planks that our forefathers trod ; We're balance, we're ballast, our hands are well calloused, And we'll steer you all safe from Cape Wrath to Cape Cod.

These others, my brothers, you doubtless feel doubt of 'em ;

Then heed us, you need us to give a true lead. Put each watch in irons, we'll get the ship out of 'ern With a liberal dose of. the Liberal creed.