Sailor

“ With thee on board, each sailor is a king Nor I mere captain of my vessel then, But heir of earth and heaven, eternal child; Daring all truth, nor fearing anything; Mighty in love, the servant of all men; Resenting nothing, taking rage and blare Into the Godlike silence of a loving care. ”

“ 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. ”

“ None but the guardian of us all, the rolling sailor-man.
His hands are often cruel cold; his heart is oftener warm,
For in its depths he knows 'tis he that shields the world from harm;
Because I know it too, my heart beats warmer when I meet
A blue-clad sailor-man adrift, on shore-leave from the fleet. ”

“ If you were to see the ship, mother dear, on a calm day, with the sails like birds' white wings, with a deck as clean as this kitchen and the sailors sitting about mending sails and splicing ropes, while the grand albatrosses are flying over us, and shoals of beautiful fish are leaping like deer in the sea--if you were to see it then, you would almost wish you had been a man, so that you might be a sailor. ”

“ That is why our little sailor-boys, though their hearts are childlike still, have the spirit of gallant veterans. Elbows on the parapet of the sea-wall, they gaze out into the offing. It is more than the blue line marking the faint division between sea and sky that they see. ”

“ The shipwrecked sailor, clinging to some wave-tossed raft, and watching with bloodshot eye the falling day, where no friendly sail has once appeared, and at last, as every hope dies out one by one within him, he hears a cheer break through the plashing of the sea, calling on him to live, may feel something like what were my sensations, as once more alone in my cell I thought of the friendly voice that could arouse me from my cold despair, and bid me hope again. ”

“ All around were cases of curious things—real sailors’ oddities: carved teeth and shells, swords from sword-fish, idols, weapons, tools—whatever a sailor could collect. One thing I remember was a harpoon-head that had been bent and twisted around itself by a whale till it looked like a scrawl in a copy-book. Then we went forward to the forecastle, to see the queer little bunks where the men sleep. ”

“ The sailor's heart within me sank to this feebly-luminous [77] mystery of aged yet imperishable hull, holding within her creatures so unnatural that the eye of man can view the like of them nowhere else, and raising her structure of ancient sail and masts to the stars which glided in blue and green and white along the yards with the rolling of her. Little wonder that she should affright the mariner who meets her amid the lonely paths of the vast ocean she haunts. ”

“ Merry sailor lads are we,
Upon the sea we go;
Singing quite new-fangled tunes,
And songs of long ago.
As we journey on our way
We sing, “Ye-ho, ye-ho”
While we are sailing the ocean. Chorus.
Away, away, our ship’s a tidy craft,
Away, away, we never stoop to graft ”

“ I felt the same sensation when, as a boy, I shot my first roe-deer in the Black Forest, one instant a living thing beautiful to perfection, the next my rifle spoke and a bleeding carcase lay beneath the fine trees. So with this ship. I am a sailor, and to every sailor every ship that floats has, as it were, a soul, a personality, an entity; to carry the analogy further, a merchant craft is like some fat beast of utility, an ox, a cow, or a sheep, whilst a warship is a lion if she is a battleship, a leopard if she is a light cruiser, etc. ”

“ In every scene of a sailor’s life ‘with skill superior glowed his daring mind’—his dauntless soul ‘rose with the storm and all its dangers shared.’ But now he rests from his toils, regardless of his triumphs. ”

“ The sailor sleeps with a half-inch plank between himself and death. He is at home beside the handful of people who curl themselves up o' nights with nothing but a frail scantling, almost as thin as a blanket, to shut out the unmeasurable loneliness of the sage. ”

“ The sailor who spends his life on the ocean might just as well attempt to awaken enthusiasm for a seafaring life in the minds of inland country-folk, by describing the magnificence of a storm at sea, when the racing waves drive by the ship and the wind shrieks in the rigging, or by telling them of voyages through summer seas when the fresh breezes and the long rolling billows speed the ship on its homeward way through the ever-changing waters. ”

“ The sailor suffers from the fact that many people have fixed in their minds an imaginary sailor whom they have created from light literature and the stage. Just as the soldier must always be a dashing fellow, so must the sailor be a rollicking soul, fond of the bottle and with a wife in every port. ”

“ I'm sailor enough to know that our masts would be broken if the wind struck the ship with all this sail upon her. And what is my work—idly standing here—compared to yours—you, who have already done so much, and are still doing the work of many men? ”

“ Anything not done in a sailor-like fashion excites him, and we hear him cry out, 'You'll never be a sailor. You were not shaped for a sailor. You were cut out to handle a musket, not a marlin-spike.' [8] 'Sailors,' said he to me one evening, 'have their prejudices like others; they have always a run upon soldiers, more perhaps in joke than in earnest. A sailor will say, "Give me a messmate before a watchmate, a watchmate before a shipmate, a shipmate before a dog, a dog before a marine, a marine before a soldier, a soldier before—the devil." ”

“ A sailor is prey to hazards and victim of the unexpected in the ever-changing moods of the ocean; he must needs be master of expedients and ready grappler of emergencies.
“Where are your tools—a saw—a chisel?” demanded Mayo. ”

“ And whose was the hand that bid them burn.
Of the rough hard life the sailor leads,
The pay he gets and the sharks ashore,
And what are the laws our shipping needs,
And the way things went in days of yore.
Of the sailing ship as she yet survives,
Of rigs we never shall see again,
Of inventions that save our seamen's lives
And murder the breed of sailor men.
We talk of these and of many a bout
When a crew came aft for a nasty row—
When loud comes a cry from the fore look-out ”

“ On looking over the ship’s side, and seeing a large body just sinking below the surface, the sailor supposed it to be some one of the crew who had gone over, and instantly raised the cry of “A man overboard!” ”

“ And those who do escape the waves,
⁠Let them be well befriended.
The Sailor goes where his duty calls,
⁠And dreads no kind of danger;
When round him flies the Cannon-balls,
⁠His heart ne’er fears a stranger. ”

“ Though I've followed the course for many a year,
If he was crazy, clean outright,
Or only what you might say was "queer."
He was just a simple sailor man.
I mind it as well as yisterday,
When we messed aboard of the old "Cyane."
Lord! how the time does slip away!
That was five and thirty year ago,
When ships was ships, and men was men,
And sailors wasn't afraid to go
To sea in a Yankee vessel then. ”

“ Years ago, when you first signed papers to voyage through life, when you weren't rated as an A. B., you used to have me spin sea-yarns for you. And you always said you were going to be a sailor, shiver my timbers, or something like that,—real sailor-like, so it sounded.
"'I never forgot this, and I always counted on taking you on a voyage with me. But your captain—that is to say your father—never would let me, and often the barometer went away down between him and me. ”

“ The sailor has his days and weeks of safety and repose and rude luxury, whilst the stately ship scuds merrily before favouring breezes over a summer sea, and the light routine of duty is but sufficient to give zest to the junk ration, the grog kid, and the tobacco pipe. ”

“ All our school-books were extravagantly illustrated with drawings of every kind of sailing-vessel, and every boy owned some sort of craft whittled from a block of wood and trimmed with infinite pains,—sloops, schooners, brigs, and full-rigged ships, with their sails and string ropes properly adjusted and named for us by some old sailor. ”

“ The born sailor is a being of an order different from ourselves—as different as a gull from a grouse, a seal from a cat. What, to a landsman, is a matter of study, memory and calculation, is to him a matter of intuition. An unstable plane is his natural, normal and helpful footing. ”

“ The sailor sees the burden, the build, and the distance of a ship at sea, while she is a great way off. Every man accustomed to writing, distinguishes acquaintance by their hand-writing, as he does by their faces. ”

“ A sailor without rudder or compass, tossed on a stormy sea--a traveller lost on a wide-spread heath, without landmark or star to him--such have I been: more lost, more hopeless than either. A nearing ship, a gleam from some far cot, may save them ”

“ All who on Thy love depend;
Waft our happy spirits o’er;
Land us on the heavenly shore.
571. 7s. M.
Mrs. Sigourney.
Prayer for the Sailor.
1 When the parting bosom bleeds,
When their native shore recedes,
When the wild and faithless main
Takes them to her trust again,
Father! view the sailor’s woe—
Guide them wheresoe’er they go.
[442]
2 When the lonely watch they keep,
Silent on the mighty deep,
While the boisterous surges hoarse
Bear them daily on their course,
Eye that never slumbers! shed
Holy influence on their head. ”

“ SAIL-NETTING. The fore-topmast staysail, main-topmast staysail, and main staysail are generally stowed in the nettings.
SAILOR. A man trained in managing a ship, either at sea or in harbour. A thorough sailor is the same with mariner and seaman, but as every one of the crew is dubbed a sailor, there is much difference in the absolute meaning of the term. (See Mariner and Seaman.)
SAILORS' HOME. A house built by subscription, for the accommodation of seamen on moderate terms, and to rescue them from swindlers, crimps, &c. Sailors' homes are a great boon also to shipwrecked mariners. ”

“ His vessel now groaning under the pressure of the gale with lee scuppers awash, the sea wild and fierce as an untamed beast, the lightning darting through the black and frightening sky, all speak to him of a [37] higher power; and as many a bad man has a good mother, so many a sailor, who, although living a life of recklessness, has no doubt of the existence of God, and that He is good.
The sailor has a religious nature. He is as other men and should be treated as such. Some seamen drink to excess, swear immoderately, and live loosely, so do some men on shore. ”

“ Has this ship been in combat since your service?”
“This ship!”
“Surely this ship: Have you ever sailed in any other?”
“Never.”
“Then, it is of this ship that one must question you. Is prize-money plenty among your crew?”
“Abundant; they never want.”
“Then the vessel and Captain are both favourites. The sailor loves the ship and Commander that give him an active life.”
“Ay, Madam; our lives are active here. And some there are among us, too, who love both ship and Commander.” ”

“ No sooner, however, has the young sailor begun his new life in earnest, than all this fine drapery falls off, and he learns that it is but work and hardship, after all. This is the true light in which a sailor’s life is to be viewed ”

“ The sailor has a grand life of it. Continually visiting strange and interesting lands, with a good ship manoeuvring through distant oceans, with plenty of contests with tides and winds. A free, open, and healthy life, which breeds cheery handiness and pluck such as make a sailor so deservedly loved by all. And all the time he is doing grand work for his country.
* * * * *
OUR LIFEBOATMEN. We are hearing a great deal of the heroes of everyday life, but there are perhaps no greater heroes, no truer scouts than sailors of the kind that man our lifeboats all round the coasts of Great Britain. ”

“ The sailor, regretting his dog’s-life at sea, and fantastically conceiving, during his sober and monotonous voyages, a career such as would have been worthy of him, on that land of whose actual life he knows only what brief spells of drunken idleness, when he is in port, reveal to him ”

“ At the first shot the sailor—an innocent stranger to our port— went into the air with a yell and came down some fifteen feet away with steam up and sails crowded; and he traveled so fast that, as one of the fellows afterward said, you had to throw your glance about forty feet ahead to see him go by. ”

“ We get all our provisions, too, by the boat, and my wife goes to church and pays her calls in it. She is a first-rate sailor, isn’t she, skipper? And as for that monkey, Jack—my little coxswain—he’s a far better pilot than I am.”
“Is he now?” said the captain. “Tell the doctor how you came to take him,” he said, with a sailor’s love of a good yarn. ”

“ If it be our duty to ascertain that a sailor can "hand, reef, and steer," before we place against his name these mystical letters, might we not well superadd, as a qualification, that he should also be able to keep his head above water, in the event of falling overboard, or that he should have it in his power to save another's life, if required to leap into the sea for that purpose by the orders of his superior? ”