A Piratical Ballad

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!

The mate was fixed by the bo’s’n’s pike,

The bo’s’n brained with a marlinspike,

And cookey’s throat was marked belike

It had been gripped

By fingers ten.

And there they lay,

All good dead men—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men all stark and cold—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Their eyes popp’d wide and glazed and bold—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

The skipper lay with his nob in gore

Where the scullion’s axe his cheek had shore,

And the scullion he was stabbed times four.

And there they lay,

And the soggy skies

Rained all day long

On the staring eyes—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of the Vixen’s list—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

All gone down from the devil’s own fist—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

We wrapped ’em all in a mainsail’s fold,

We sewed at the foot a bit of gold,

And we heaved ’em into the billows cold.

The bit was put

As snug’s could be,

Where’t ne’er will bother

You nor me—

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!