The Three Sailors
by JAN STRUTHER
I SAW three sailors drinking beer
In a Seventh Avenue bar:
The first one had a parakeet
And the second a new guitar —
But the third had nothing except a look
That he’d brought back from afar,
Where the bloodstained islands are.
In a Seventh Avenue bar:
The first one had a parakeet
And the second a new guitar —
But the third had nothing except a look
That he’d brought back from afar,
Where the bloodstained islands are.
The first one talked with a Midwest burr;
He was big and broad and fair;
The blue Great Lakes were in his eyes
And Norway in his hair.
He came from a state where the earth lies flat
As far as a man can stare:
He had a plainsman’s air.
He was big and broad and fair;
The blue Great Lakes were in his eyes
And Norway in his hair.
He came from a state where the earth lies flat
As far as a man can stare:
He had a plainsman’s air.
The second one was a mountain man
And he spoke with a mountain drawl.
His hair was red and his eyes were green;
He was narrow, and middling tall.
He was born with a chip on his shoulder bone
In a shack with a mud-chinked wall,
Where the Blue Ridge foothills fall.
And he spoke with a mountain drawl.
His hair was red and his eyes were green;
He was narrow, and middling tall.
He was born with a chip on his shoulder bone
In a shack with a mud-chinked wall,
Where the Blue Ridge foothills fall.
The third one’s voice had an East Side tang:
He was swarthy and slim and neat.
He was got in a Bowery rooming house
And born on Delancey Street,
Where the kids lie out on the fire escapes
At night, in the August heat,
And the sidewalks scorch their feet.
He was swarthy and slim and neat.
He was got in a Bowery rooming house
And born on Delancey Street,
Where the kids lie out on the fire escapes
At night, in the August heat,
And the sidewalks scorch their feet.
The first was Olaf Christiansen;
The second was Pat McCoy —
But the third was Simeon Salvator,
The child of an hour of joy:
So some of the kids yelled “Wop” or “Kike”
And some of them whispered “Goy”
When he was a little boy.
The second was Pat McCoy —
But the third was Simeon Salvator,
The child of an hour of joy:
So some of the kids yelled “Wop” or “Kike”
And some of them whispered “Goy”
When he was a little boy.
Olaf’s kin have plowed their land
For ninety years or more,
And Patrick’s folks were backwoodsmen
Before the Seven Years’ War:
But Simeon’s mother passed the Lamp
Beside the Golden Door
In nineteen three, or four.
For ninety years or more,
And Patrick’s folks were backwoodsmen
Before the Seven Years’ War:
But Simeon’s mother passed the Lamp
Beside the Golden Door
In nineteen three, or four.
Olaf played with the parakeet
And tickled it with a straw.
It pecked a pretzel out of a dish
And held it in its claw.
“Of all the gals in those gosh-darned Isles,
She’s the cutest one I saw —
So I’m taking her home to Maw.”
And tickled it with a straw.
It pecked a pretzel out of a dish
And held it in its claw.
“Of all the gals in those gosh-darned Isles,
She’s the cutest one I saw —
So I’m taking her home to Maw.”
Patrick hitched his foot on the rail
And tuned a slackened string.
He sang of the land where his forebears lived
When George the Third was king:
Of the Bonnie Banks where “the broken heart
It knows no second Spring”—
The way all hill folk sing.
And tuned a slackened string.
He sang of the land where his forebears lived
When George the Third was king:
Of the Bonnie Banks where “the broken heart
It knows no second Spring”—
The way all hill folk sing.
But Simeon, he’d brought nothing back
By way of a souvenir.
He’d scarcely heard of Dan’l Boone,
He was hazy on Paul Revere,
And Ellis Island was where his folks
Had faced their worst frontier:
So he listened, and drank his beer.
By way of a souvenir.
He’d scarcely heard of Dan’l Boone,
He was hazy on Paul Revere,
And Ellis Island was where his folks
Had faced their worst frontier:
So he listened, and drank his beer.
Simeon, he’d brought nothing back
He could carry in arm or hand,
But only something he’d never had
And still didn’t understand:
Through sweat and blood he’d begun to feel
Like a man with a native land.
It was new, and kind of grand.
He could carry in arm or hand,
But only something he’d never had
And still didn’t understand:
Through sweat and blood he’d begun to feel
Like a man with a native land.
It was new, and kind of grand.
I saw three sailors drinking beer
In a Seventh Avenue bar:
The first one had a parakeet
And the second a new guitar —
But the third had nothing except a look
That he’d brought home from afar,
Where the bloodstained islands are.
In a Seventh Avenue bar:
The first one had a parakeet
And the second a new guitar —
But the third had nothing except a look
That he’d brought home from afar,
Where the bloodstained islands are.