was pillowed on two great leopards, whose breathing rose
and sank with his own;
Now a pirate is bold, but the vision was rum and would _call_ for rum
in the best of beholders,
And it seemed we had seen Him before, in a dream, with that flame-red
hair and that vine-leaf crown.

_And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And softlier now we sung:
Half a hundred awe-struck pirates
When the world was young!_

Now Timothy Hook (of whom ye have heard, with his talon of steel)
our doughty skipper,
A man that, in youth being brought up pious, had many a book on
his cabin-shelf,
Suddenly caught at a comrade's hand with the tearing claws of his
cold steel flipper
And cried, "Great Thunder and Brimstone, boys, I've hit it at last!
_'Tis Bacchus himself._"

_And the earth went round, and the rum went round,
And never a word we sung:
Half a hundred tottering pirates
When the world was young!_

He flung his French cocked hat i' the foam (though its lace was the best
of his wearing apparel):
We stared at him--Bacchus! The sea reeled round like a wine-vat
splashing with purple dreams,
And the sunset-skies were dashed with blood of the grape as the sun
like a new-staved barrel
Flooded the tumbling West with wine and spattered the clouds with
crimson gleams.

_And the earth went round, and our heads went round,
And never a word we sung:
Half a hundred staggering pirates
When the world was young!_

Down to the ship for a fishing-net our crafty Hook sent Silver leaping;
Back he came on his pounding crutch, for all the world like a kangaroo;
And we caught the net and up to the Sleeper on hands and knees we all
went creeping,
Flung it across him and staked it down! 'Twas the best of our dreams
and the dream was true.

_And 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