Where Blackmoor was, the road that led

   To Bath, she could not show,

Nor point the sky that overspread

   Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way,

   Cape Horn there figured fell,

That here was Boston, here Bombay,

   She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart

   Froom Mead or Yell’ham Wood

Than how to make some Austral port

   In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore

   Behind the plum-tree nigh,

Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar

   In the weir’s purl hard by . . .

“My son’s a sailor, and he knows

   All seas and many lands,

And when he’s home he points and shows

   Each country where it stands.

“He’s now just there—by Gib’s high rock—

   And when he gets, you see,

To Portsmouth here, behind the clock,

   Then he’ll come back to me!”