John Masefield,
A Pier-Head Chorus
“ And I have given river-wrack and all the filth of towns For the rolling, combing cresters of the sea. We'll sheet the mizzen-royals home and shimmer down the Bay, The sea-line blue with billows, the land-line blurred and grey; The bow-wash will be piling high and thrashing into spray, As the hooker's fore-foot tramples down the swell. She'll log a giddy seventeen and rattle out the reel, The weight of all the run-out line will be a thing to feel, As the bacca-quidding shell-back shambles aft to take the wheel, And the sea-sick little middy strikes the bell. ”
