HAVE YOU EVER HEAR

by harry

I know, there still exist the heroes of the Horn and the Cap,

Did you ever know the shovelling men of the coal-burning ocean steamers?

The stockers, the firemen,

and the trimmers,

they were called with many names.

Down there below, in the stock hold,

on the bottom the ship, they toiled,

they were men who wore no officer caps,

nor brass-buttoned jackets either.

They wore sweat - rag, singlets, and dungaree,

the buckles of the backside of the belt turned.

Shovelling and feeding the hungry furnaces.

The steam stand at the top, and the engineer on the top of the engine-room

with his brass-buttoned jacket,

"We are doing the knots! This old whore takes twenty-four tons of coal a day".

They were tramps, and they steamed up the ramps.

hearing their arses ahead turned on their seaway.

They hailed from nowhere, from the ports of nowhere,

from the hoes and the spirit.

No, you do not see em' anymore. nor can hear of em' anymore.

The noise and cursing below down there, in the stokehold are ceased.

You do not see a trimmer anymore with his wheelbarrow.

Shovelling their everlasting coal they have all gone, by the Cap of Good Hope

their arses ahead they went on their seaway for India, and to the hell