And our black prow grated, one golden noon, on the happiest isle of the Happy Islands,
An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem, on the sparkling breast of the wine-dark deep,
An isle of blossom and yellow sand, and enchanted vines on the purple highlands,
Wi' grapes like melons, nay clustering suns, a-sprawl over cliffs in their noonday sleep.
While earth goes round let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred dream-struck pirates
When the world was young!
And lo! on the soft warm edge of the sand, where the sea like wine in a golden noggin
Creamed, and the rainbow-bubbles clung to his flame-red hair, a white youth lay,
Sleeping; and now, as his drowsy grip relaxed, the cup that he squeezed his grog in
Slipped from his hand and its purple dregs were mixed with the flames and flakes of spray.
While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred diffident pirates
When the world was young!
And we suddenly saw (had we seen them before? They were coloured like sand or the pelt on his shoulders)
His head was pillowed on two great leopards, whose breathing rose and sank with his own;
Now a pirate is bold, but the vision was rum and would call for rum in the best of beholders,
And it seemed we had seen Him before, in a dream, with that flame-red hair and that vine-leaf crown.
And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And softlier now we sung:
Half a hundred awe-struck pirates
When the world was young!
Now Timothy Hook (of whom ye have heard, with his talon of steel) our doughty skipper,
A man that, in youth being brought up pious, had many a book on his cabin-shelf,
Suddenly caught at a comrade's hand with the tearing claws of his cold steel flipper
And cried, "Great Thunder and Brimstone, boys, I've hit it at last! 'Tis Bacchus himself."
And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And never a word we sung:
Half a hundred tottering pirates
When the world was young!
He flung his French cocked hat i' the foam (though its lace was the best of his wearing apparel):
We stared at him—Bacchus! The sea reeled round like a wine-vat splashing with purple dreams,
And the sunset-skies were dashed with blood of the grape as the sun like a new-staved barrel
Flooded the tumbling West with wine and spattered the clouds with crimson gleams.
And the earth went round, and our heads went round,
And never a word we sung:
Half a hundred staggering pirates
When the world was young!