Ballads (Masefield, 1903)/Blind Man's Vigil

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Blind Man's Vigil

Mumblin' under the gallows, hearin' the clank o' the chain,Hearin' the suck o' the sea as the tide goes by the stair,I fiddles a lilt o' tune to the bones o' the men o' the Main,Who dangle, rattle, and dance in the rusty chains on air.
Poor old mariners' bones, a mark for cobbles and hoys,As they go about in the Reach when the dingy tide's at flood. ​Bones of Billy's old shipmates, bones o' the merry boys,Whose faults were dollars and girls, and a too quick tick o' the blood.
They wasn't the lads to rest in a patch of Christian mould,Under a marble slab with a verse o' Scripter to 't.They asked for liquor, an' fun, an' a friend to share the gold,An' a dance in hemp at last wi' nothin' but air to foot.
I fiddles 'em bits o' tunes, an' ballads, an' songs, an' rhymes,Of the sort that brought the anchor home, an' the yard to the masthead; ​An' I think they likes to hear, for it makes 'em mind the times,When the blood was hot, an' the throat was dry, an' a woman's lips were red.
Fiddlin' under the gallows I mumbles tunes an' wordsTo the danglin', janglin' rags an' bones that once were lads I knew;(An' I think they likes to hear), an' it scares away the birds,From the men who go where the wind blows, an' went where the wind blew.
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