Volume II Part 13 (1/2)
_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!_
Over the seas in the pomp of dawn a king's s.h.i.+p came with her proud flag flying.
Cloud upon cloud we watched her tower with her belts and her crowded zones of sail; And an A.B. perched in a white crow's nest, with a bra.s.s-rimmed spy-gla.s.s quietly spying, As we swallowed the lumps in our choking throats and uttered our last faint feeble hail!
_And our heads went round as the s.h.i.+p went round, And we thought how coves had swung: All for playing at broad-sheet 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 wasn'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!_
So we sailed by Execution Dock, where the swinging pirates haughty and scornful Rattled their chains, and on Margate beach we came like a school-treat safe to land; And one of us took to religion at once; and the rest of the crew, tho'
their hearts were mournful, Capered about as Christy Minstrels, while Hook conducted the big bra.s.s band.
_And the sun went round, and the moon went round, And, O, 'twas a thought that stung!
There was none to believe we were broad-sheet pirates 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 la.s.ses 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!_
THE NEWSPAPER BOY
I
Elf of the City, a lean little hollow-eyed boy Ragged and tattered, but lithe as a slip of the Spring, Under the lamp-light he runs with a reckless joy Shouting a murderer's doom or the death of a King.
Out of the darkness he leaps like a wild strange hint, Herald of tragedy, comedy, crime and despair, Waving a poster that hurls you, in fierce black print One word _Mystery_, under the lamp's white glare.
II
Elf of the night of the City he darts with his crew Out of a vaporous furnace of colour that wreathes Magical letters a-flicker from crimson to blue High overhead. All round him the mad world seethes.
Hansoms, like cantering beetles, with diamond eyes Run through the moons of it; busses in yellow and red Hoot; and St. Paul's is a bubble afloat in the skies, Watching the pale moths flit and the dark death's head.
III
Painted and powdered they s.h.i.+mmer and rustle and stream Westward, the night moths, masks of the Magdalen! See, Puck of the revels, he leaps through the sinister dream Waving his elfin evangel of _Mystery_, Puck of the bubble or dome of their scoffing or trust, Puck of the fairy-like tower with the clock in its face, Puck of an Empire that whirls on a pellet of dust Bearing his elfin device thro' the splendours of s.p.a.ce.