Your poor old dad and granddad, long since dead--
God rest their weary souls--were born and bred
Upon this shore, as fine God-fearin' sort
As ever brought a leaky ship to port.
They never put up any braggin' claims
To learnin'--couldn't more than write their names,
And yet, no dealer born could take 'em in,
In things of common sense, like figurin'
Accounts, or show them any solid reason
Why number one prime cod might any season
Drop in price, while the fish remained as good
As ever, and a quintal always stood
A quintal; and there never was a strait
Or gulf or cape they couldn't navigate;
And fair or foul it made no difference.
They had no learnin', but the chunk of sense
The Good Lord gave 'em for their calculation,
While other men who learned their navigation
From books, got drowned; so you for all your letters
Have got no call for sneerin' at your betters.
THE SCHOLAR (_with condescension_).
But, my dear man, I feel I must admit
To such a native modicum of wit,
By this, plus luck, if such a thing there be,
A man may wrest his living from the sea;
But on the troublous sea as on the land.
Note what we owe the scientific hand.
The world's dark secrets have been opened out
By men who forged their faith from honest doubt.
Who rounded out the universe for us
But Galileo and Copernicus?
Who gave us chart and compass, sextant, log,
And apparatus for detecting fog
And wind and currents? Who gave us thermometers?
Again, I ask; who, prisms and barometers?
THE SALT (_snortingly_).
A man that owns a hand can use a log,
An idiot with one eye can see a fog
When it is comin'.