Wise men pray for hearth and home, a comely wife to tend them,
And dread to feed the little folks that clamber on their knee;
Their fathers' fields to plough and sow—their old friends to befriend them,
But Crusoe was a vagabond, and ran away to sea.
He strayed upon the docks of Hull, and smelt the tar and cordage,
He saw the bales of foreign ware piled high upon the quay,
He heard the seamen singing, and the outbound ship-bells ringing
Across the fog and darkness;—and he ran away to sea.
He might have dwelt by barn and dyke our fathers made before us,
And dipped his fat sheep yearly in the burn that turns the mill;
He might have heard the harvest home go up in lusty chorus,
When the last wain comes lumbering across the moonlit hill.
But he heard the loud surf thundering against the harbour wall,
The brown be-earringed sailor-men all swearing on the quay;
The salt was in his nostrils, and he cared no more at all
For barn or byre or cattle; but he ran away to sea.
The boys he knew are grey, old men, and soon their sons shall lay them
To rest beside the little church upon the spur of hill:
The distant hum of chant and prayers, the feet of them that pray them,
The sunlight and the blackbirds' song shall be about them still.
But he's a homeless wanderer from Rio Grande to Malabar,
And God knows who shall stand by him, or what his end shall be.
The wheeling gulls shall cry his dirge, the great waves drum his burial,
When his poor old battered body slips into the greedy sea.
