Down to the ship for a fishing-net our crafty Hook sent Silver leaping;
Back he came on his pounding crutch, for all the world like a kangaroo;
And we caught the net and up to the Sleeper on hands and knees we all went creeping,
Flung it across him and staked it down! 'Twas the best of our dreams and the dream was true.
And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And loudly now we sung:
Half a hundred jubilant pirates
When the world was young!
We had caught our god, and we got him aboard ere he woke (he was more than a little heavy);
Glittering, beautiful, flushed he lay in the lurching bows of the old black barque,
As the sunset died and the white moon dawned, and we saw on the island a star-bright bevy
Of naked Bacchanals stealing to watch through the whispering vines in the purple dark!
While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our capstan song we sung:
Half a hundred innocent pirates
When the world was young!
Beautiful under the sailing moon, in the tangled net, with the leopards beside him,
Snared like a wild young red-lipped merman, wilful, petulant, flushed he lay;
While Silver and Hook in their big sea-boots and their boat-cloaks guarded and gleefully eyed him,
Thinking what Bacchus might do for a seaman, like standing him drinks, as a man might say.
While earth goes round, let rum go round,
We sailed away and sung:
Half a hundred fanciful pirates
When the world was young!
All the grog that ever was heard of, gods, was it stowed in our sure possession?
O, the pictures that broached the skies and poured their colours across our dreams!
O, the thoughts that tapped the sunset, and rolled like a great torchlight procession
Down our throats in a glory of glories, a roaring splendour of golden streams!
And the earth went round, and the stars went round,
As we hauled the sheets and sung:
Half a hundred infinite pirates
When the world was young!
Beautiful, white, at the break of day, He woke and, the net in a smoke dissolving,
He rose like a flame, with his yellow-eyed pards and his flame-red hair like a windy dawn,
And the crew kept back, respectful like, till the leopards advanced with their eyes revolving,
Then up the rigging went Silver and Hook, and the rest of us followed with case-knives drawn.
While earth goes round, let rum go round,
Our cross-tree song we sung:
Half a hundred terrified pirates
When the world was young!