He tramped through the colorless winter land, or swined in the scorching heat, The dry skin hacked on his sapless hands or blistering on his feet; He wallowed in mire unseen, unknown, where your houses of pleasure rise, And hapless, hungry, and chilled to the bone, he builded the edifice. In cheerless model[A] and filthy pub, his sinful hours were passed, Or footsore, weary, he begged his grub, in the sough of the hail-whipped blast, So some might riot in wealth and ease, with food and wine be crammed, He wrought like a mule, in muck to his knees, dirty, dissolute, damned. [A] A "model" is an English resort for wayfarers, maintained by charity. Arrogant, adipose, you sit in the homes he builded high; Dirty the ditch, in the depths of it he chooses a spot to die, Foaming with nicotine-tainted lips, holding his aching breast, Dropping down like a cow that slips, smitten with rinderpest; Drivelling yet of the work and wet, swearing as sinners swear, Raving the rule of the gambling school, mixing it up with a prayer. He lived like a brute as the navvies live, and went as the cattle go, No one to sorrow and no one to shrive, for heaven ordained it so-- He handed his check to the shadow in black, and went to the misty lands, Never a mortal to close his eyes or a woman to cross his hands. _As a bullock falls in the rugged ruts He fell when the day was o'er, Hunger gripping his weasened guts, But never to hunger more_-- _They pulled it out of the ditch in the dark, The chilling frost on its hair, The mole-skinned navvy stiff and stark From no particular where._ Rounding the Horn[A] [A] By permission of the Macmillan Co. (_From "Dauber"_) BY JOHN MASEFIELD (An English poet who has had a varied career as sailor, laborer and even bartender upon the Bowery, New York. Born 1873, his narrative poems of humble life made him famous almost over night) Then came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!" The Dauber knew its meaning; it was come: Cape Horn, that tramples beauty into wreck, And crumples steel and smites the strong man dumb. Down clattered flying kites and staysails: some Sang out in quick, high calls: the fair-leads skirled, And from the south-west came the end of the world.... "Lay out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and feeling Sick at the mighty space of air displayed Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling. A giddy fear was on him; he was reeling. He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack. A cold sweat glued the shirt upon his back.