Yes, it is for Polly’s sake, and the bairns, I’ve been attending, To all that they’ve been saying of Shipowners and their craft, And been brooding o’er those wrongs, sir, which the Board o’ Trade means mending, And at which, when I was reckless, why, I only took and laughed. So you, please, mustn’t think that Tom Tough is a shirk, Nor in anyways flustered or frighted, If he should ask you, whilst he sticks to his work, To try if those wrongs can’t be righted. For you see I ain’t no spouter, and I’ve not the gift o’ patter, But all the same I knows full well that many things is wrong; And drownding is for me and mine so serious a matter, That if the case is put for us, it can’t be put too strong. So whilst I continues my duty to do, Until my last trip is completed, I hope that the Board will do _its_ dooty, too, And see that Tom’s properly treated. There’s such talk about insoorance and the likes, I’ve often wonder’d If there’s any human feeling in this great and Christian land, For all the while they’re chatt’ring, men is drownding by the hunderd, Through the acts o’ greedy owners, if I rightly understand. Aye, it’s this that is makin’ a coward of the best, And turning good hands into railers: It’s this that is crushing the pluck and the zest From the hearts o’ your brave British sailors. So it ain’t for no great favour that Tom Tough just now is praying, He wants to have fair chances in the struggle, that is all; And if Englishmen loves justice, why there’ll be no more delaying In list’ning and attending to his very urgent call. Or, leastways, if they at my language still sneer, And pass my petition unheeding, I knows very well they won’t turn a deaf ear To my wife and my little ones’ pleading! _Truth._ March 27, 1884. ―――― A SAILOR’S PLEA FOR THE “YO, HEAVE HO!” Yes, my name, d’ye know’s Tom Tough, and I’ve seed a sight o’ service, Where the waves roll mountains high, and the stormy winds do blow; But my heart’s as true as steel, and right taut my every nerve is, As when, in eighteen forty, I first sung out, “Yo, heave ho!” No, I’ve never yet been ailing, Since the time I went a-sailing; An’ though I’ve been around this world some twenty times or so; Aye, although I ain’t a stranger, To any kind o’ danger, Yet I’m ready still to meet ’em with a “Yo, heave ho!”