BACCHUS AND THE PIRATES

Half a hundred terrible pig-tails, pirates famous in song and story,

Hoisting the old black flag once more, in a palmy harbour of Caribbee,

“Farewell” we waved to our brown-skinned lasses, and chorussing out to the billows of glory,

Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we followed the sunset over the sea.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred broad-sheet pirates

When the world was young!

Half a hundred tarry pig-tails, Teach, the chewer of glass, had taught us,

Taught us to balance the plank ye walk, your little plank-bridge to Kingdom Come:

Half a score had sailed with Flint, and a dozen or so the devil had brought us

Back from the pit where Blackbeard lay, in Beelzebub's bosom, a-screech for rum.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred piping pirates

When the world was young!

With our silver buckles and French cocked hats and our skirted coats

( they were growing greener,

But green and gold look well when spliced! We'd trimmed‘ em up wi’ some fine fresh lace )

Bravely over the seas we danced to the horn-pipe tune of a concertina,

Cutlasses jetting beneath our skirts and cambric handkerchiefs all in place.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred elegant pirates

When the world was young!

Now Timothy Hook ( of whom ye have heard, with his talon of steel ) our doughty skipper,

A man that, in youth being brought up pious, had many a book on his cabin-shelf,

Suddenly caught at a comrade's hand with the tearing claws of his cold steel flipper

And cried, “Great Thunder and Brimstone, boys, I've hit it at last!

‘ Tis Bacchus himself.”

And the earth went round, and the rum went round,

And never a word we sung:

Half a hundred tottering pirates

When the world was young!

Down to the ship for a fishing-net our crafty Hook sent Silver leaping;

Back he came on his pounding crutch, for all the world like a kangaroo;

And we caught the net and up to the Sleeper on hands and knees we all went creeping,

Flung it across him and staked it down!‘ Twas the best of our dreams and the dream was true.

And the earth went round, and the rum went round,

And loudly now we sung:

Half a hundred jubilant pirates

When the world was young!

And “Take me home to my happy island!” he says. “Not I,” sings Hook,

“by thunder;

We'll take you home to a happier isle, our palmy harbour of Caribbee!”

“You wo n't!” says Bacchus, and quick as a dream the planks of the deck just heaved asunder,

And a mighty Vine came straggling up that grew from the depths of the wine-dark sea.

And the sea went round, and the skies went round,

As our cross-tree song we sung:

Half a hundred horrified pirates

When the world was young!

Bunch upon bunch of sunlike grapes, as we writhed and struggled and raved and strangled,

Bunch upon bunch of gold and purple daubed its bloom on our baked black lips.

Clustering grapes, O, bigger than pumpkins, just out of reach they bobbed and dangled

Over the vine-entangled sails of that most dumbfounded of pirate ships!

And the sun went round, and the moon came round,

And mocked us where we hung:

Half a hundred maniac pirates

When the world was young!

Half a hundred rose-white Bacchanals hauled the ropes of that rosy cruiser!

Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old black barque;

And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: “Hi, stop!” cries Hook,

“you frantic old boozer!

Belay, below there, do n't you go and leave poor pirates to die in the dark!”

And the moon went round, and the stars went round,

As they all pushed off and sung:

Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals

When the world was young!

Over the seas they went and Bacchus he stands, with his yellow-eyed leopards beside him,

High on the poop of rose and pearl, and kisses his hand to us, pleasant as pie!

While the Bacchanals danced to their tambourines, and the vine-leaves flew, and Hook just eyed him

Once, as a man that was brought up pious, and scornfully hollers,

“Well, you ai n't shy!”

For all around him, vine-leaf crowned,

The wild white Bacchanals flung!

Nor it was n't a sight for respectable pirates

When the world was young!

All around that rainbow-Nautilus rippled the bloom of a thousand roses,

Nay, but the sparkle of fairy sea-nymphs breasting a fairy-like sea of wine,

Swimming around it in murmuring thousands, with white arms tossing; till — all that we knows is

The light went out, and the night was dark, and the grapes had burst and their juice was — brine!

And the vines that bound our bodies round

Were plain wet ropes that clung,

Squeezing the light out o’ fifty pirates

When the world was young!

Half a hundred trembling corsairs, all cut loose, but a trifle giddy,

We lands on their trim white decks at last and the bo'sun he whistles us good hot grog,

And we tries to confess, but there was n't a soul from the Admiral's self to the gold-laced middy

But says, “They're delirious still, poor chaps,” and the Cap'n he enters the fact in his log,

That his boat's crew found us nearly drowned

In a barrel without a bung —

Half a hundred suffering sea-cooks

When the world was young!

Ah, yet ( if ye stand me a noggin of rum ) shall the old Blue Dolphin echo the story!

We'll hoist the white cross-bones again in our palmy harbour of Caribbee!

We'll wave farewell to our brown-skinned lasses and, chorussing out to the billows of glory,

Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we'll follow the sunset over the sea!

While earth goes round, let rum go round!

O, sing it as we sung!

Half a hundred terrible pirates

When the world was young!