|
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's chest |
|
Drink and the Devil had done for the rest |
|
The mate was fixed with the bo'sun's pike |
|
And the bo'sun brained with a marlin-spike, |
|
Cookie's throat was marked belike |
|
It had been gripped by fingers ten, |
|
And there they lay, all good dead men, |
|
Like break o' day in a boozin' den |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
Fifteen men of the whole ship's list |
|
Dead and bedamned and the rest gone whist |
|
The skipper lay with his nob in gore |
|
Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore, |
|
And the scullion he'd been stabbed times four |
|
And there they lay, and the soggy skies |
|
Dripped all day long up staring eyes |
|
By murk sunset and by foul sunrise-- |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark |
|
Ten of the crew with a murder mark |
|
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead, |
|
Or a yawning hole in a battered head, |
|
And the scupper's a-glut with a rotting red |
|
And there they lay, aye, damn me eyes, |
|
Their lookouts clapped on Paradise, |
|
And their souls gone just contrariwise-- |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
Fifteen men of 'em good and true |
|
Every man-jack could 'a sailed with Old Pew |
|
There was just no chest full of Spanish gold, |
|
With a ton of plate in the middle hold, |
|
The cabins a riot of loot untold-- |
|
And there they lay that took the plum, |
|
With sightless glare and lips struck dumb, |
|
While we shared all by the rule of thumb-- |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
More was seen through a stern light screen |
|
Charting, no doubt, where a woman had been |
|
A flimsy shift on a bunkered cot |
|
With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot |
|
And the lace stiff dry with a purplish blot-- |
|
Oh, was she a wench, some shuddering maid |
|
That dared the knife and took the blade |
|
By God, she was tough for a plucky jade-- |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's chest, |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
Drink and the Devil had done for the rest, |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
|
Wrapped them all in the mainsail tight, |
|
Twice ten turns of a hawser's bight |
|
And we heaved them over and out of sight |
|
With a yo-heave-ho and a fare-ye-well, |
|
A sudden plunge in a sullen swell |
|
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell-- |
|
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |