"_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Hey! ho! and a bottle of rum!"_
Faith, that's a chorus I can rattle off with zest. Gratefully it
clatters upon DAVY'S tym-pa-num,
Like a devil's tattoo from Death's drum! Fi! Fo! Fum! These be very
parlous times for old legends of the sea.
VANDERDECKEN is taboo'd, the Sea Sarpint is pooh-pooh'd, but 'tis plain
as any pikestaff they can't disestablish Me!
DADDY NEPTUNE may delight in the Island trim and tight, where his
sea-dogs breed and fight, as in days of yore,
When old CHARLIE DIBDIN'S fancy piped free songs of JACK and NANCY, of
Jolly Salts at sea, and Old Tarry-Breeks ashore;
But if Britons rule the waves, as the grog-fired sailor raves, when he
dreams of glorious graves in the deep dark main,
DADDY NEPTUNE must allow DAVY shares his empire now, or the _Sultan_
and the _Howe_ have gone down in vain.
DADDY NEPTUNE loves me not. Plumped by storm or by shot, my Locker held
a lot in the days gone by,
But 'tis daily growing fuller. Is the British Tar off colour, are the
sea-dogs slower, duller, though as game to die?
Has Science spoilt their skill, that their iron pots so fill my old
Locker? How I thrill at the lumbering crash,
When a-crunch upon a rock, with a thundering Titan shock, goes some
shapeless metal block, to immortal smash?
Oh! it's real, rasping fun! Mighty hull, monster gun, all are mine ere
all's done; and the millions madly spent
On a lollopping wolloping kettle, with ten thousand tons of metal sink
as the Titans settle, turtle-turned, or wrenched and rent,
To my rocks and my ooze. I seem little like to lose by the "Progress"
some abuse, and the many crack up.
Ah! NEPTUNE, sour old lad, DAVY JONES may well look glad at the modern
Iron-clad, and thank ARMSTRONG and KRUPP!
Science and Salvage? Fudge! If _I_ am any judge, my sea-depths and salt
sludge will not lose by _them_.
NEP calls me callous mocker, but, according to _my_ Cocker, I may laugh,
with a full Locker, whilst the fools condemn.
Think of daring the blue brine with a chart of the Eighty-Nine, and "a
regular goldmine" in one huge black hulk!
Whilst the lubbers stick to that, I shall flourish and grow fat like a
shark or ocean-rat, though old NEP may sulk.
Demon-Sexton of the Deep! Ha! ha! Ho! ho! I keep my old office. Wives
may weep, and the taxpayers moan;
Let the grumblers make appeal to King Science! Lords of Steel, Iron
Chieftains, do ye feel when your victims groan?
DAVY JONES is well content with that tribute ye have sent, with the
millions ye have spent just to glut his gorge;
He had seldom such a fill in the days of wood--and skill--constant
sea-fights, or the spill of the _Royal George_.
Good old false last-century Chart! Though the conning may be smart,
and the steersman play his part, Palinurus-like,
Whilst they trust to your vain vellum, which is almost sure to sell
'em, even DAVY JONES can tell 'em, they may sink or strike.
Hooray, King Death, hooray! Who says we've had our day! Pass the rum and
let's be gay. Not that "dead man's chest,"
ROBERT LOUIS grimly sings, like my "Locker Chorus" rings--mingling
weirdly wedded things--grisly doom and jest!
* * * * *
On an Irish Landlord.
"Love thou thy Land!" So sang the Laureate.
Were that sole Landlord duty, you'd fulfil it!
But land makes not a Land, nor soil a State.
Loving your land, how sullenly you hate--
The People--who've to till it!
Of the earth, earthy is that love of soil
Which for wide-acred wealth will sap and spoil
The souls and sinews of the thralls of Toil.
Churl! Bear a human heart, a liberal hand!
_Then_ thou may'st say that thou dost "love thy Land."
* * * * *
WHEN a Stag has once been uncarted, and has been given
so many minutes law to get away, the Huntsman may correctly
allude to him as "The Deer Departed."
* * * * *
[Illustration:
"DAVY JONES'S LOCKER."
Davy Jones. "AHA! SO LONG AS THEY STICK TO THEM OLD
CHARTS, NO FEAR O' MY LOCKER BEIN' EMPTY!!"]
* * * * *