I ain’t never had no schoolin’
Nor read no books like you,
But I knows ’t ain’t healthy to be foolin’
With that there gristly two.
You’re young, you thinks, ’n’ you’re lairy,
But if you’re to make old bones,
Steer clear, I says, o’ Mother Carey,
’N’ that there Davy Jones.
EVENING—REGATTA DAY
Your nose is a red jelly, your mouth’s a toothless wreck,
And I’m atop of you, banging your head upon the dirty deck;
And both your eyes are bunged and blind like those of a mewling pup,
For you’re the juggins who caught the crab and lost the ship the Cup.
He caught a crab in the spurt home, this blushing cherub did,
And the ‘Craigie’s’ whaler slipped ahead like a cart-wheel on the skid,
And beat us fair by a boat’s nose though we sweated fit to start her,
So we are playing at Nero now, and he’s the Christian martyr.
And Stroke is lashing a bunch of keys to the buckle-end a belt,
And we’re going to lay you over a chest and baste you till you melt.
The ‘Craigie’ boys are beating the bell and cheering down the tier,
D’ye hear, you Port Mahone baboon, I ask you, do you hear?
A VALEDICTION
We’re bound for blue water where the great winds blow,
It’s time to get the tacks aboard, time for us to go;
The crowd’s at the capstan and the tune’s in the shout,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, and warp the hooker out.’
The bow-wash is eddying, spreading from the bows,
Aloft and loose the topsails and some one give a rouse;
A salt Atlantic chanty shall be music to the dead,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, and the yard to the mast-head.’