We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull, And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull; We'd a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,...
I hold that when a person dies His soul returns again to earth; Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise Another mother gives him birth. With sturdier limbs and brighter brain...
I had seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, Ao I trust, too.
Oh yesterday, I t'ink it was, while cruisin' down the street, I met with Bill. "Hullo," he says, "let's give the girls a treat." We'd red bandanas round our necks 'n' our shrouds new rattled down,...
Oh I'll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread, And dancing with the stars to watch, upon the fo'c's'le head, Hearkening to the bow-wash and the welter of the tread...
We're bound for blue water where the great winds blow, It's time to get the tacks aboard, time for us to go; The crowd's at the capstan and the tune's in the shout,...
A wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels, I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land, Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand....
I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain: I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,...
When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts, And long before this wandering flesh is rotten The dates which made me will be all forgotten;...
Oh some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white, And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight; But rum alone's the tipple, and the heart's delight Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. ...
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. ...
In the dark womb where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir,...
I Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck, All work aboard was over for the hour, And some men sang and others played at check, Or mended clothes or watched the sunset glower....
"When I'm discharged at Liverpool 'n' draws my bit o' pay, I won't come to sea no more; I'll court a pretty little lass 'n' have a weddin' day, 'N' settle somewhere down shore;...
Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song, Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong. Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span....
The Kings go by with jewled crowns; Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many. The sack of many-peopled towns Is all their dream: The way they take Leaves but a ruin in the brake,...
Mother Carey? She's the mother o' the witches 'N' all them sort o' rips; She's a fine gell to look at, but the hitch is, She's a sight too fond of ships; She lives upon an iceberg to the norred,...
Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland, On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf, Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland And the pine-woods roar like the surf. ...
Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy Calling the cows home. ...