"Oh, Billy, we're going to kill and eat you,
So undo the button of your chimie."
When Bill received this information,
He used his pocket-handkerchie.
"First let me say my catechism
Which my poor mammy taught to me."
"Make haste, make haste," says guzzling Jimmy,
While Jack pulled out his snickersnee.
So Billy went up to the main-top gallant mast,
And down he fell on his bended knee.
He scarce had come to the twelfth commandment
When up he jumps, "There's land I see.
"Jerusalem and Madagascar,
And North and South Amerikee:
There's the British flag a-riding at anchor,
With Admiral Napier, K.C.B."
So when they got aboard of the Admiral's
He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jimmee;
But as for little Bill, he made him
The Captain of a Seventy-Three.
THE SOUTH COUNTRY
[Sidenote: Hilaire Belloc]
When I am living in the Midlands
That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind.
The great hills of the South Country,
They stand along the sea:
And it's there walking in the high woods,
That I could wish to be,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy,
Walking along with me.
The men that live in North England,
I saw them for a day:
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
Their skies are fast and grey;
From their castle walls a man may see
The mountains far away.
The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,
A-rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along.
They have the secret of the rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.