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,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.
We'd a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.
Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people's brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.
O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken-coop;
Then, having washed the blood away, we'd little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.
O! the fiddle on the fo'c's'le, and the slapping naked soles,
And the genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!"
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.
Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
All have since been put a stop-to by the naughty Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest.
Notes
From SALT-WATER POEMS AND BALLADS, edited by John Masefield, published by The Macmillan Company, New York, US, © 1921, pp. 64-65.
The chicken-coop referred to is a slang reference to a cage or prison cell where captives would have been kept rather than thrown overboard. Better to be cooped-up than have to walk the plank!
This old pirate might be telling his story to some of his old shipmates, or maybe to some youngsters who encountered him on the dock.
This poem has been adapted for singing by Charlie Ipcar (US) and here is a link to a MP3 sample of how he sings it: http://home.gwi.net/~ipbar/lyrics/john_silver.htm
Charley Noble
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Comments
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A Ballad of John Silver
Verses 4 and 5 would best be consolidated as one verse but the poet's not around to negotiate with any more. But I do love the overall playful tone of the poem, which makes the 3rd verse even more shocking.
Charley Noble. Rewarded 4
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A Ballad of John Silver
From guest Fred Ford, Blackstock (contact)
I learnd this poem in grade 5 at Eatonville Public School in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. Miss Elizabeth Pike was our teacher and we sang the poem to the tune of the "Yellow Rose of Texas" at a concert in Massey Hall in Toronto. I was a pure soprano then and sang a solo of " Behind our house we had a pond at the same conference.
Back to Long John Silver. We screamed out the "decks were spatterdashed with other people's brains". What fun! -
Thank you everyone for your courtesy and hospitality and access to the wonderfull poetry, and poetic spirit from the lips and quills of experienced folk near sea docks and chandlers.
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