|
--This ballad
appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious
Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact...
|
|
. . . At the
close of a winter day, |
| Their anchors down, by London
town, the Three Great Captains lay; |
| And one was Admiral of the North
from Solway Firth to Skye, |
| And one was Lord of the
Wessex coast and all the lands thereby, |
| And one was Master of the Thames
from Limehouse to Blackwall, |
| And he was Captain of the Fleet
-- the bravest of them all. |
| Their good guns guarded their
great grey sides that were thirty foot in the sheer, |
| When there came a certain
trading-brig with news of a privateer. |
| Her rigging was rough with the
clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze, |
| Her sides were clogged with the
lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas. |
| "I ha' paid Port dues for
your Law," quoth he, "and where is the Law ye boast |
| Light she rode in the rude
tide-rip, to left and right she rolled, |
| And the skipper sat on the
scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold. |
| If I sail unscathed from a
heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast? |
| Ye have smoked the hives of the
Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk, |
| We tack not now to a Gallang prow
or a plunging Pei-ho junk; |
| I had no fear but the seas were
clear as far as a sail might fare |
| Till I met with a lime-washed
Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre. |
| There were canvas blinds to his
bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore, |
| And the signals ran for a
merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore. |
| He would not fly the Rovers' flag
-- the bloody or the black, |
| But now he floated the Gridiron
and now he flaunted the Jack. |
| He spoke of the Law as he crimped
my crew -- he swore it was only a loan; |
| But when I would ask for my own
again, he swore it was none of my own. |
| He has taken my little parrakeets
that nest beneath the Line, |
| He has stripped my rails of the
shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine; |
| He has taken my bale of dammer
and spice I won beyond the seas, |
|
He has taken my grinning heathen gods -- and what should he want o' these?
|
| My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse
patch his boats;
|
| He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to
peddle for shoe-peg oats.
|
| I could not fight for the failing light and a
rough beam-sea beside,
|
| But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and
twice because he lied.
|
| Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my
Christian harm,
|
| I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade
with his own yard-arm;
|
| I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and
ripped them off with a saw,
|
| And soused them in the bilgewater, and served
them to him raw;
|
| I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot
in the rocking dark,
|
| I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for
his brother shark;
|
| I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and
drenched him with the oil,
|
| And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze
above my spoil;
|
| I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and
tasselled his beard i' the mesh,
|
| And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that
grows through the gangrened flesh;
|
| I had hove him down by the mangroves brown, where
the mud-reef sucks and draws,
|
| Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for
the land-crab's claws!
|
| He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose
him far enow,
|
| For he carries the taint of a musky ship -- the
reek of the slaver's dhow!"
|
| The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the
bulwarks tall and cold,
|
| And the Captains Three full courteously peered
down at the gutted hold,
|
| And the Captains Three called courteously from
deck to scuttle-butt: --
|
| "Good Sir, we ha' dealt with that
merchantman or ever your teeth were cut.
|
| Your words be words of a lawless race, and the
Law it standeth thus:
|
| He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he
never has boarded us.
|
| We ha' sold him canvas and rope and spar -- we
know that his price is fair,
|
| And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law
as he rides off Finisterre.
|
| And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you
and better than you,
|
| We hold it meet that the English fleet should
know that we hold him true."
|
| The skipper called to the tall taffrail: --
"And what is that to me?
|
| Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a
Seventy-three?
|
| Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I
lift like a ship o' the Line?
|
| He has learned to run from a shotted gun and
harry such craft as mine.
|
| There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a
white man in,
|
| But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that
is a nigger's sin.
|
| Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid
in brass on his wheel?
|
| Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers?
'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?"
|
| The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word
it was not sweet,
|
| For he could see the Captains Three had signalled
to the Fleet.
|
| But three and two, in white and blue, the
whimpering flags began: --
|
| "We have heard a tale of a -- foreign sail,
but he is a merchantman."
|
| The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by
the Great Horn Spoon: --
|
| "'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would
bless my picaroon!"
|
| By two and three the flags blew free to lash the
laughing air: --
|
| "We have sold our spars to the merchantman
-- we know that his price is fair."
|
| The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by
a China storm: --
|
| "They ha' rigged him a Joseph's jury-coat to
keep his honour warm."
|
| The halliards twanged against the tops, the
bunting bellied broad,
|
| The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned
for a wasted cord.
|
| Masthead -- masthead, the signal sped by the line
o' the British craft;
|
| The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put
her about and laughed: --
|
| "It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all --
we'll out to the seas again --
|
| Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or
scrub at his grapnel-chain.
|
| It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea,
and the swing of the unbought brine --
|
| We'll make no sport in an English court till we
come as a ship o' the Line:
|
| Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of
thirty foot in the sheer,
|
| Lifting again from the outer main with news of a
privateer;
|
| Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of
Admiralty,
|
| Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that
we keep the sea.
|
| Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam --
we stand on the outward tack,
|
| We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade
-- the bezant is hard, ay, and black.
|
| The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling
and the Orang-Laut
|
| How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be
robbed in a Christian port;
|
|
How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there
|
| Shall dip their flag to a
slaver's rag -- to show that his trade is fair!"
|
|
by Rudyard Kipling
|