And "Take me home to my happy island!" he says. "Not I," sings Hook, "by thunder;
We'll take you home to a happier isle, our palmy harbour of Caribbee!"
"You won't!" says Bacchus, and quick as a dream the planks of the deck just heaved asunder,
And a mighty Vine came straggling up that grew from the depths of the wine-dark sea.
And the sea went round, and the skies went round,
As our cross-tree song we sung:
Half a hundred horrified pirates
When the world was young!
We were anchored fast as an oak on land, and the branches clutched and the tendrils quickened,
And bound us writhing like snakes to the spars! Ay, we hacked with our knives at the boughs in vain,
And Bacchus laughed loud on the decks below, as ever the tough sprays tightened and thickened,
And the blazing hours went by, and we gaped with thirst and our ribs were racked with pain
And the skies went round, and the sea swam round,
And we knew not what we sung:
Half a hundred lunatic pirates
When the world was young!
Bunch upon bunch of sunlike grapes, as we writhed and struggled and raved and strangled,
Bunch upon bunch of gold and purple daubed its bloom on our baked black lips.
Clustering grapes, O, bigger than pumpkins, just out of reach they bobbed and dangled
Over the vine-entangled sails of that most dumbfounded of pirate ships!
And the sun went round, and the moon came round,
And mocked us where we hung:
Half a hundred maniac pirates
When the world was young!
Over the waters the white moon winked its bruised old eye at our bowery prison,
When suddenly we were aware of a light such as never a moon or a ship's lamp throws,
And a shallop of pearl, like a Nautilus shell, came shimmering up as by magic arisen,
With sails: of silk and a glory around it that turned the sea to a rippling rose.
And our heads went round, and the stars went round,
At the song that cruiser sung:
Half a hundred goggle-eyed pirates
When the world was young!
Half a hundred rose-white Bacchanals hauled the ropes of that rosy cruiser!
Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old black barque;
And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: "Hi, stop!" cries Hook, "you frantic old boozer!
Belay, below there, don't you go and leave poor pirates to die in the dark!"
And the moon went round, and the stars went round,
As they all pushed off and sung:
Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals
When the world was young!