‘Tis twelve years hence that this grim note was writ

And buried by the hand of the Alliance

‘til from the brains of their most trusted men

did River pluck it like a bouncing ball

or like the shattered wheel of an ox-cart

that tumbling finds its way into the ditch

and sends the drover sprawling to the mud

So would the men who let this secret spill

Fall if the ‘verse should know the truth it tells

And this I swear, that such a thing will be

And thirty worlds at last will know the truth

When for these hapless dead we come to speak.

For divers reasons are each of you here

Upon this boat I’m proud to call my home

But each and ev’ry one is on my crew

I know full well the price of what I ask

Indeed, before the end it may take all

But know that there’s no cause of greater worth

For sure as I know aught, I know forsooth

That they who did this will not rest for long

And maybe on another shining world

Or maybe on this very ground swept clean

A year from now, or two, or maybe more

They will swing back to this accurs’d belief

That with the power of science in their hands

They can reform our souls like so much clay

And make us better.

I hold not to that!

And so I swear to you to run no more

And live a’hunted or as some man’s slave

Nay, forsooth, I aim to misbehave.