“’Tis a woeful yarn,”
said the sailor man bold
Who had sailed the northern-lakes—
“No woefuler one has ever been told
Exceptin’ them called
‘fakes.’”
“Go on, thou son of the wind and
fog,
For I burn to know the worst!”
But his silent lip in a glass of grog
Was dreamily immersed.
Then he wiped it on his sleeve and said:
“It’s never like
that I drinks
But what of the gallant gent that’s
dead
I truly mournful thinks.
“He was a soldier chap—leastways
As ‘Colonel’ he
was knew;
An’ he hailed from some’rs
where they raise
A grass that’s heavenly
blue.
“He sailed as a passenger aboard
The schooner ‘Henery
Jo.’
O wild the waves and galeses roared,
Like taggers in a show!
“But he sat at table that calm an’
mild
As if he never had let
His sperit know that the waves was wild
An’ everlastin’
wet!—
“Jest set with a bottle afore his
nose,
As was labeled ‘Total
Eclipse’
(The bottle was) an’ he frequent
rose
A glass o’ the same
to his lips.
“An’ he says to me (for the
steward slick
Of the ‘Henery Jo’
was I):
’This sailor life’s the very
old Nick—
On the lakes it’s powerful
dry!’
“I says: ’Aye, aye, sir,
it beats the Dutch.
I hopes you’ll outlast
the trip.’
But if I’d been him—an’
I said as much—
I’d ‘a’
took a faster ship.
“His laughture, loud an’ long
an’ free,
Rang out o’er the tempest’s
roar.
‘You’re an elegant reasoner,’
says he,
‘But it’s powerful
dry ashore!’”
“O mariner man, why pause and don
A look of so deep concern?
Have another glass—go on, go
on,
For to know the worst I burn.”
“One day he was leanin’ over
the rail,
When his footing some way
slipped,
An’ (this is the woefulest part
o’ my tale),
He was accidental unshipped!
“The empty boats was overboard hove,
As he swum in the ‘Henery’s
wake’;
But ’fore we had ’bouted ship
he had drove
From sight on the ragin’
lake!”
“And so the poor gentleman was drowned—
And now I’m apprised
of the worst.”
“What! him? ’Twas an
hour afore he was found—
In the yawl—stone dead o’
thirst!”
FOR TAT.
O, heavenly powers! will wonders never
cease?—
Hair upon dogs and feathers upon geese!
The boys in mischief and the pigs in mire!
The drinking water wet! the coal on fire!
In meadows, rivulets surpassing fair,
Forever running, yet forever there!
A tail appended to the gray baboon!
A person coming out of a saloon!
Last, and of all most marvelous to see,
A female Yahoo flinging filth at me!
If ’twould but stick I’d bear
upon my coat
May Little’s proof that she is fit
to vote.
