Them Artists
by Stockton Axson

What is it sickens with disgust the Gloucester sailorman?  It isn't fightin' wind and fog, nor driftin' in a calm;  It isn't toiling off the Banks where fishin's on the bum; It isn't even wrestlin' with the facts of Gloucester rum.  It's these everlastin' artists a settin' all around,  A paintin' everything we do from the top-mast to the ground. 
Fore we get to Ten Pound Island they're a roostin' on the shore,  And they follow us about the port till we put to sea once more.  If we only drop an anchor or lower away a sail  They're a'slappin' paint on canvas and a'workin' like a gale.  We can't lay hold upon a rope but,—Lord A 'mighty 's sake !  They're a 'flockin' all about us like flies around a cake. 
They take us in our overalls, so shapeless and so slack,  You can hardly tell by lookin' if we're goin' or comin' back;  Our own wives and our sweethearts fail to find us pretty then, But it seems to suit these artists,—the women and the men,  For they puts is into picters and they think it's just immense  They call it "picteresque," I b'lieve, but it certain isn't sense.

They're paintin' in the sunshine, they're paintin' in the fog,  They're paintin' when it's rainin' hard enough to drown a dog;  They paint when it is high tide, and then the tide goes down  And leaves the harbor mostly slime, all green and greasy brown,— So nasty that you'd think it would disgust a harbor rat,  But Gosh! would you believe it? They're even painted that! 
And what they keep a'doin it for is more than I can tell,  For the things when they're finished they certain look like,—well  They look like nothin' known upon the land or on the deep,  It seems a waste of time when likely chromos are so cheap.  But I s'pose their kinsfolks likes to have them Pottering It keeps 'em out of mischief, and from doing some wuss thing.