f 1612)

Oh, once again my merry men and I are on the water with prospects fair,
with hearts to dare, and souls athirst for slaughter! Before the
breeze we scour the seas, our vessel low and raking, and men who find
our ship behind in mortal fear are quaking. We love the fight and our
delight grows as the strife increases; we slash and slay and hew our
way to win the golden pieces. To hear, to feel the clang of steel!
Ah, that, my men, is rapture! Our hearts are stern, we sink, we burn,
we kill the men we capture! Why mercy show when well we know that when
our course is ended, we all must die--they'll hang us high, unshaven,
undefended! Ah, wolves are we that roam the sea, and rend with savage
fury; as soft our mind, our hearts as kind will be judge and jury! To
rob and slay we go our way, our vessel low and raking; and men who hail
our ebon sail may well be chilled and quaking!

(The Pirate of 1912)

My heart is light and glad tonight, and life seems good and merry; my
coffer groans with golden bones I've pulled from the unwary. Ah,
raiment fine and gems are mine, and costly bibs and tuckers; I got my
rocks for mining stocks--I worked the jays and suckers. What though my
game is going lame--a jolt the courts just gave me--my lawyers gay will
find a way to beat the law and save me. I'll just lie low a year or so
until the row blows over, then I'll come back to my old shack and be
again in clover! I've fifty ways to work the jays and there's a
fortune in it! The sucker crop will never stop, for one is born each
minute.

[Illustration: Buccaneers]

ST. PATRICK'S DAY

Away with tears and sordid fears, no trouble will we borrow, but shed
our woes like winter clothes--it's Patrick's day tomorrow. With clubs
and rakes we'll chase the snakes, and send the toads a-flying, and
we'll be seen with ribbons green, all other hues decrying. In
grass-green duds we'll plant the spuds, where they can do no growing;
with flat and sharp we'll play the harp, and keep the music going.
Then let us yell, for all is well, the world's devoid of sorrow; the
toads are snared, the snakes are scared, it's Patrick's day tomorrow.

NAMING THE BABY

First I thought I'd call him Caesar; but my Uncle Ebenezer said that
name was badly hoodoed--wasn't Julius Caesar slain? Then I said, "I'll
call him Homer"; but my second cousin Gomer answered; "Homer was a
pauper, and he wrote his rhymes in vain." Long I pondered, worr