From a short school play
We sing of sunken treasure-ships in coral-girt lagoons,
And ancient casquets burst with weight of ducats and dubloons,
Great galleons and argosies of ingots from Peru,
And the secret of El Dorado that a vanished people knew.
To sack the tinkling mule-trains from the Gulf of Panama,
With their saddle-bags of silver delved in mountain mines afar,
To rake the stately galleons, the masts aflame with flags,
And ballasted below with golden dollar-bits in bags.
O the Dons in Cartagena and the French in Martinique!
And death to those who waver, and gold for those who seek;
To hazard stakes with fortune and to cheat her once again,
And after that a haven close beside the Spanish Main.
We wander, free as sea-birds, to lands no sea-bird knows,
Where palm-trees stand all leafy green amid the winter snows,
And strange ungodly sights and wonders fright the straining eyes;
But always we are sailormen and children of the skies