Oh yesterday, I t’ink it was, while cruisin’ down the street,
I met with Bill.—‘Hullo,’ he says, ‘let’s give the girls a treat.’
We’d red bandanas round our necks ’n’ our shrouds new rattled down,
So we filled a couple of Santy Cruz and cleared for Sailor Town.
We scooted south with a press of sail till we fetched to a caboose,
The ‘Sailor’s Rest,’ by Dago Tom, alongside ‘Paddy’s Goose.’
Red curtains to the windies, ay, ’n’ white sand to the floor,
And an old blind fiddler liltin’ the tune of ‘Lowlands no more.’
He played the ‘Shaking of the Sheets’ ’n’ the couples did advance,
Bowing, stamping, curtsying, in the shuffling of the dance;
The old floor rocked and quivered, so it struck beholders dumb,
’N’ arterwards there was sweet songs ’n’ good Jamaikey rum.
’N’ there was many a merry yarn of many a merry spree
Aboard the ships with royals set a-sailing on the sea,
Yarns of the hooker ‘Spindrift,’ her as had the clipper-bow,—
‘There ain’t no ships,’ says Bill to me, ‘like that there hooker now.’
When the old blind fiddler played the tune of ‘Pipe the Watch Below,’
The skew-eyed landlord dowsed the glim and bade us ‘stamp ’n’ go,’
’N’ we linked it home, did Bill ’n’ I, adown the scattered streets,
Until we fetched to Land o’ Nod atween the linen sheets.
‘PORT OF MANY SHIPS’
‘It’s a sunny pleasant anchorage, is Kingdom Come,
Where crews is always layin’ aft for double-tots o’ rum,
’N’ there’s dancin’ ’n’ fiddlin’ of ev’ry kind o’ sort,
It’s a fine place for sailor-men is that there port.
’N’ I wish—
I wish as I was there.
‘The winds is never nothin’ more than jest light airs,
’N’ no-one gets belayin’-pinned, ’n’ no-one never swears,
Yer free to loaf an’ laze around, yer pipe atween yer lips,
Lollin’ on the fo’c’s’le, sonny, lookin’ at the ships.
’N’ I wish—
I wish as I was there.
‘For ridin’ in the anchorage the ships of all the world
Have got one anchor down ’n’ all sails furled.
All the sunken hookers ’n’ the crews as took ’n’ died
They lays there merry, sonny, swingin’ to the tide.
’N’ I wish—
I wish as I was there.