“No cloud aloft to throw a shade;
No distant breezy ripple made
The ocean dark below.
No cheering sign of any kind;
The more we whistled for the wind
The more it did not blow.
“The hands were idle, one and all;
No sail to reef against a squall;
No wheel, no steering now!
Nothing to do for man or mate,
But chew their cuds and ruminate,
Just like the Captain’s Cow.
“Day after day, day after day,
Becalm’d the Jolly Planter lay,
As if she had been moor’d:
The sea below, the sky a-top
Fierce blazing down, and not a drop
Of water left aboard!
“Day after day, day after day,
Becalm’d the Jolly Planter lay,
As still as any log;
The Parching seamen stood about,
Each with his tongue a-lolling out,
And panting like a dog—
“A dog half mad with summer heat
And running up and down the street,
By thirst quite overcome;
And not a drop in all the ship
To moisten cracking tongue and lip,
Except Jamaica rum!
“The very poultry in the coop
Began to pine away and droop—
The cock was first to go;
And glad we were on all our parts,
He used to damp our very hearts
With such a ropy crow.
“But worst it was, we did allow,
To look upon the Captain’s Cow,
That daily seemed to shrink:
Deprived of water hard or soft,
For, though we tried her oft and oft,
The brine she wouldn’t drink:
“But only turn’d her bloodshot eye,
And muzzle up towards the sky,
And gave a moan of pain,
A sort of hollow moan and sad,
As if some brutish thought she had
To pray to heav’n for rain;
“And sometimes with a steadfast stare
Kept looking at the empty air,
As if she saw beyond,
Some meadow in her native land,
Where formerly she used to stand
A-cooling in the pond.
“If I had only had a drink
Of water then, I almost think
She would have had the half:
But as for John the Carpenter,
He couldn’t more have pitied her
If he had been her calf.