SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining)
Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad--fleet interlacings of the limbs--
lithe swayings--coyings--flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze:
unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety.
Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)
TAHITAN SAILOR (Reclining on a mat)
Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!--the Heeva-Heeva! Ah!
low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat,
but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat!
green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite.
Ah me!--not thou nor I can bear the change! How then,
if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from
Pirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown
the villages?--The blast, the blast! Up, spine, and meet it!
(Leaps to his feet.)
PORTUGUESE SAILOR
How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for reefing,
hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they'll
go lunging presently.
DANISH SAILOR
Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest!
Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more
afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic
with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!
4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
He has his orders, mind ye that.
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