The Janitor's Boy, and Other Poems

by Nathalia Crane

JOHN PAUL JONES

’Tis John Paul Jones—the janitor’s boy,

He lives on the gun-deck floor,

Where all of the windows are action ports,

And the dumbwaiters rattle and roar.

The old trash tins are our hand grenades

And the rugs on the backyard lines—

Are the mains of the Britisher Serapis

That we fight with our bursting “Nines.”