dots-menu
×
Home  »  library  »  poem  »  The Yarn of the “Loch Achray”

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Yarn of the “Loch Achray”

By John Masefield (1878–1967)

From ‘Salt-Water Ballads’

THE “LOCH ACHRAY” was a clipper tall

With seven-and-twenty hands in all.

Twenty to hand and reef and haul,

A skipper to sail and mates to brawl

“Tally on the tackle-fall,

Heave now’n’ start her, heave’n’ pawl!”

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

Her crew were shipped and they said “Farewell,

So-long, my Tottie, my lovely gell;

We sail to-day if we fetch to hell,

It’s time we tackled the wheel a spell.”

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

The dockside loafers talked on the quay

The day that she towed down to sea:

“Lord, what a handsome ship she be!

Cheer her, sonny boys, three times three!”

And the dockside loafers gave her a shout

As the red-funnelled tug-boat towed her out;

They gave her a cheer as the custom is,

And the crew yelled “Take our loves to Liz—

Three cheers, bullies, for old Pier Head

’N’ the bloody stay-at-homes!” they said.

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

In the gray of the coming on of night

She dropped the tug at the Tuskar Light,

’N’ the topsails went to the topmast head

To a chorus that fairly awoke the dead.

She trimmed her yards and slanted South

With her royals set and a bone in her mouth.

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

She crossed the Line and all went well,

They ate, they slept, and they struck the bell

And I give you a gospel truth when I state

The crowd didn’t find any fault with the Mate,

But one night off the River Plate.

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

It freshened up till it blew like thunder

And burrowed her deep, lee-scuppers under.

The old man said, “I mean to hang on

Till her canvas busts or her sticks are gone”—

Which the blushing looney did, till at last

Overboard went her mizzen-mast.

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

Then a fierce squall struck the “Loch Achray,”

And bowed her down to her water-way;

Her main-shrouds gave and her forestay,

And a green sea carried her wheel away;

Ere the watch below had time to dress

She was cluttered up in a blushing mess.

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

She couldn’t lay-to nor yet pay-off,

And she got swept clean in the bloody trough,

Her masts were gone, and afore you knowed

She filled by the head and down she goed.

Her crew made seven-and-twenty dishes

For the big jack-sharks and the little fishes,

And over their bones the water swishes.

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.

The wives and girls they watch in the rain

For a ship as won’t come home again.

“I reckon it’s them head-winds,” they say,

“She’ll be home to-morrow, if not to-day.

I’ll just nip home ’n’ I’ll air the sheets

’N’ buy the fixin’s ’n’ cook the meats

As my man likes ’n’ as my man eats.”

So home they goes by the windy streets,

Thinking their men are homeward bound

With anchors hungry for English ground,

And the bloody fun of it is, they’re drowned!

Hear the yarn of a sailor,

An old yarn learned at sea.