Were in such a woful pickle
As if Death, with scythe and sickle,
With his sling or with his shaft
Had cut his harvest fore and aft.
Thus, in thirty minutes, ended
Mischiefs that could not be mended;
Masts and yards and ship descended
All to David Jones’s locker——
Such a ship, in such a pucker!
So sang the old-time Yankee rhymester of the ship that “was not the Little Belt.”