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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408590" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Captain Von Esson of the “Sebastopol”</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of his beauty, or stature, or colour of hair I hadn’t the slightest hint,<br>But he comes to me as a little man, with a scrubby beard and a squint,<br>With a heart somewhere if it wasn’t there, and an Irish terrier nose,<br>With a bark or a yelp for his friends and his crew, and a bull-dog grip for his foes. <br>The Japs had taken a permanent fort at the price of ten thousand sons,<br>And they shelled the ships in the harbour there with their landed naval guns.<br>Through sand bags laid on the upper deck, the shells went through with a whelt—<br>And some (because of ballistic curve) out under the armoured belt. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Till each was sunk that the Russians left—while the buildings reeled with the shock,<br>Save the last of the Russian ships of war—the Sebastopol—in dock.<br>And this is the reason—told in a line—why there is a tale to tell:<br>The Sebastopol had a man for boss, and a crew that knew it well. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He rousted them out from the dens ashore, and they didn’t engage in prayer,<br>For dear men pray when the fight is done, and there wasn’t a cheap man there.<br>He rooted the dock-hands out, when crouched, in deadly fear of the Jap,<br>But they stood in greater immediate fear of Von Esson’s squint and his yap. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She groped her way in the gathering dusk, out under the time-dulled din,<br>And nothing was heard save a whispered word, and the laugh of a Russian Finn.<br>He took her out from the harbour trap, where the shells came down like hail,<br>For a chance to fight for the Wrong or Right round under the “Lizard’s Tail.” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">My fathers came from the North, my friends, when there was a world to win;<br>And something hints of the Northern Wolf in the laugh of a Russian Finn;<br>A sailor he was, with gorilla arms, and a mighty, hairy chest—<br>’T was a laugh of love for his captain man, and a laugh of hate for the rest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There is neither the time nor the space to tell of the deeds that those Russians did;<br>Three days on the toppling lid of hell, like an ill-made cauldron’s lid.<br>The breathless pause ere the flashlight fell where the creeping foe was hid,<br>The blood-streaked decks, and the grunt or yell, when the stricken slipped and slid. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The faces white in a sudden light, and the ghostly dying grin,<br>The great relief when the silence broke, and they revelled in Hell’s own din.<br>The blinding flash and the stunning crash—strained ears—strained eyes—dry skin—<br>The short sharp yelp of that captain man, and—the laugh of the Russian Finn. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">’T was not for Cause nor for Liberty, Religion, or Glory, or Land—<br>He fought for love of a captain man he could crush with his big right hand.<br>Till five torpedo boats round her lay, in the mud, the slush, and the ooze—<br>She sent them down for the Old Greek Church, with the whole of their monkey crews. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the last one gave her a last thrust home, and left by a friendly tide,<br>She lay like a man on his elbow raised, with a hand on her wounded side.<br>She was left to be called for later on, with a solid bank beneath—<br>The Japs were short of torpedo boats, and—they’d had enough of her teeth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, safe from the landed naval guns, and the last torpedo boat,<br>Von Esson worked with his squint and bark till he got his vessel afloat.<br>He’d marked her a grave with his level eye where the open sea was fair,<br>And he steered her out to the deep water, and he grimly sank her there. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">(It’s oh, for a chance when a man of men must live the living lie—<br>For a chance to live as a man might live, and die as a man might die!<br>When one is a slave to paltry things in a life that never can change,<br>It’s oh! for a cause, and a decent gun, and a hundred rounds, and the range!) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The boats slipped in in the gathering dusk, and under the time-dulled din,<br>And vanished from us to a yap of command, and the grunt of a Russian Finn.<br>But somewhere down in a seamen’s den (maybe, perhaps within hail),<br>There’s a drunken rabble of sailor men, and a Finn that tells a tale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408590" data-title="Captain Von Esson of the “Sebastopol” de Henry Lawson" data-description="Of his beauty, or stature, or colour of hair I hadn’t the slightest hint,
But he comes to me as a little man, with a scrubby beard and a squint,
With a heart somewhere if it wasn’t there, and an Irish terrier nose,
With a bark or a yelp for hi..."></div>
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