"Pray, my little man, and what's that that you are crying there so bravely?"
Ben told them it was poetry.
"O!—aye! poetry!" said they; "poetry! that's a sort of something or other in metre—like the old version, isn't it?"
"O yes, to be sure," said they all, "it must be like the old version, if it is poetry;" and thereupon they stared at him, marvelling hugely that a "little curly headed boy like him should be selling such a wonderful thing!" This made Ben hug himself still more on account of his poetry.
I have never been able to get a sight of the ballad of the Light-house Tragedy, which must no doubt have been a great curiosity: but the sailor's song on Blackbeard runs thus—
"Come all you jolly Sailors,
You all so stout and brave;
Come hearken and I'll tell you
What happen'd on the wave.
Oh! 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard