Collected Poems: Volume Two. Alfred Noyes
the earth went round, and the rum went round, And loudly now we sung: Half a hundred jubilant pirates When the world was young!
We had caught our god, and we got him aboard ere he woke (he was more than a little heavy);
Glittering, beautiful, flushed he lay in the lurching bows of the old black barque,
As the sunset died and the white moon dawned, and we saw on the island a star-bright bevy
Of naked Bacchanals stealing to watch through the whispering vines in the purple dark!
While earth goes round, let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred innocent pirates When the world was young!
Beautiful under the sailing moon, in the tangled net, with the leopards beside him,
Snared like a wild young red-lipped merman, wilful, petulant, flushed he lay;
While Silver and Hook in their big sea-boots and their boat-cloaks guarded and gleefully eyed him,
Thinking what Bacchus might do for a seaman, like standing him drinks, as a man might say.
While earth goes round, let rum go round, We sailed away and sung: Half a hundred fanciful pirates When the world was young!
All the grog that ever was heard of, gods, was it stowed in our sure possession?
O, the pictures that broached the skies and poured their colours across our dreams!
O, the thoughts that tapped the sunset, and rolled like a great torchlight procession
Down our throats in a glory of glories, a roaring splendour of golden streams!
And the earth went round, and the stars went round, As we hauled the sheets and sung: Half a hundred infinite pirates When the world was young!
Beautiful, white, at the break of day, He woke and, the net in a smoke dissolving,
He rose like a flame, with his yellow-eyed pards and his flame-red hair like a windy dawn,
And the crew kept back, respectful like, till the leopards advanced with their eyes revolving,
Then up the rigging went Silver and Hook, and the rest of us followed with case-knives drawn.
While earth goes round, let rum go round, Our cross-tree song we sung: Half a hundred terrified pirates When the world was young!
And "Take me home to my happy island!" he says. "Not I," sings Hook, "by thunder;
We'll take you home to a happier isle, our palmy harbour of Caribbee!"
"You won't!" says Bacchus, and quick as a dream the planks of the deck just heaved asunder,
And a mighty Vine came straggling up that grew from the depths of the wine-dark sea.
And the sea went round, and the skies went round, As our cross-tree song we sung: Half a hundred horrified pirates When the world was young!
We were anchored fast as an oak on land, and the branches clutched and the tendrils quickened,
And bound us writhing like snakes to the spars! Ay, we hacked with our knives at the boughs in vain,
And Bacchus laughed loud on the decks below, as ever the tough sprays tightened and thickened,
And the blazing hours went by, and we gaped with thirst and our ribs were racked with pain
And the skies went round, and the sea swam round, And we knew not what we sung: Half a hundred lunatic pirates When the world was young!
Bunch upon bunch of sunlike grapes, as we writhed and struggled and raved and strangled,
Bunch upon bunch of gold and purple daubed its bloom on our baked black lips.
Clustering grapes, O, bigger than pumpkins, just out of reach they bobbed and dangled
Over the vine-entangled sails of that most dumbfounded of pirate ships!
And the sun went round, and the moon came round, And mocked us where we hung: Half a hundred maniac pirates When the world was young!
Over the waters the white moon winked its bruised old eye at our bowery prison,
When suddenly we were aware of a light such as never a moon or a ship's lamp throws,
And a shallop of pearl, like a Nautilus shell, came shimmering up as by magic arisen,
With sails: of silk and a glory around it that turned the sea to a rippling rose.
And our heads went round, and the stars went round, At the song that cruiser sung: Half a hundred goggle-eyed pirates When the world was young!
Half a hundred rose-white Bacchanals hauled the ropes of that rosy cruiser!
Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old black barque;
And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: "Hi, stop!" cries Hook, "you frantic old boozer!
Belay, below there, don't you go and leave poor pirates to die in the dark!"
And the moon went round, and the stars went round, As they all pushed off and sung: Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals When the world was young!
Over the seas they went and Bacchus he stands, with his yellow-eyed leopards beside him,
High on the poop of rose and pearl, and kisses his hand to us, pleasant as pie!
While the Bacchanals danced to their tambourines, and the vine-leaves flew, and Hook just eyed him
Once, as a man that was brought up pious, and scornfully hollers, "Well, you ain't shy!"
For all around him, vine-leaf crowned, The wild white Bacchanals flung! Nor it wasn't a sight for respectable pirates When the world was young!
All around that rainbow-Nautilus rippled the bloom of a thousand roses,
Nay, but the sparkle of fairy sea-nymphs breasting a fairy-like sea of wine,
Swimming around it in murmuring thousands, with white arms tossing; till—all that we knows is The light went out, and the night was dark, and the grapes had burst and their juice was—brine!
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 ship 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 brass-rimmed spy-glass 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 ship 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