Some swore it was a Sea Horse, then own’d themselves mistaken,
For, now they’d got a nearer view—’twas certainly a Kraken.
Each sported his opinion, from the parson to the barber,
Of the terrible Sea Monster they had got in the harbour.
“Belay, belay,” a sailor cried, “what that, this thing, a Kraken!
’Tis no more like one, split my jib, than it is a flitch of bacon!
I’ve often seen a hundred such, all sporting in the Nile, Sir,
And you may trust a sailor’s word, it is a Crocodile, Sir.”
Each strait to Jack knocks under, from the parson to the barber,
And all agreed a Crocodile had got into the harbour.