And, in the forests of the west, had seen the red deer chased,
And dwelt beneath the piny woods, a hunter of the waste.
Oh! pleasant were the tales he told, of lands so strange and new;
And in my ignorance I vowed I’d be a sailor too:
My father heard my vow with joy,—so in the early May
We went on board a merchant-man, bound for Honduras’ bay.
Right merrily, right merrily, we sailed before the wind,
With a briskly heaving sea before, and the landsman’s cheer behind.
There was joy for me in every league, delight on every strand,
And I sat for days on the high fore-top, on the long look-out for land.