le lawyer hath a longing, lads,
To hear a right Homeric hymn. Now, Jack!
But wet your whistle, first! A cup of sack
For the first canto! Muscadel, the next!
Canary for the last!" I brought the cup.
John Davis emptied it at one mighty draught,
Leapt on a table, stamped with either foot,
And straight began to troll this mad sea-tale:

CANTO THE FIRST

Let Martin Parker at hawthorn-tide
Prattle in Devonshire lanes,
Let all his pedlar poets beside
Rattle their gallows-chains,
A tale like mine they never shall tell
Or a merrier ballad sing,
Till the Man in the Moon pipe up the tune
And the stars play Kiss-in-the-Ring!

_Chorus:_ Till Philip of Spain in England reign,
And the stars play Kiss-in-the-Ring!

All in the gorgeous dawn of day
From grey old Plymouth Sound
Our galleon crashed thro' the crimson spray
To sail the world around:
_Cloud i' the Sun_ was her white-scrolled name,--
There was never a lovelier lass
For sailing in state after pieces of eight
With her bombards all of brass.

_Chorus:_ Culverins, robinets, iron may-be;
But her bombards all of brass!

Now, they that go down to the sea in ships,
Though piracy be their trade,
For all that they pray not much with their lips
They know where the storms are made:
With the stars above and the sharks below,
They need not parson or clerk;
But our bo'sun Bill was an atheist still,
Except--sometimes--in the dark!

_Chorus:_ Now let Kit Marlowe mark!
Our bo'sun Bill was an atheist still,
Except--sometimes--in the dark!

All we adventured for, who shall say,
Nor yet what our port might be?--
A magical city of old Cathay,
Or a castle of Muscovy,
With our atheist bo'sun, Bill, Black Bill,
Under the swinging Bear,
Whistling at night for a seaman to light
His little poop-lanthorns there.

_Chorus:_ On the deep, in the night, for a seaman to light
His little lost lanthorns there.

But, as over the Ocean-sea