The Derelict
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 chest on 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!
