StoryTitle("caps", "A Nautical Ballad ") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PagePoem(121, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A capital ship for an ocean trip,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Was the Walloping Window-Blind. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "No gale that blew dismayed her crew, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Nor troubled the captain's mind.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The man at the wheel was taught to feel ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Contempt for the wildest blow;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And it often appeared—when the weather had cleared—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "He had been in his bunk below.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The boatswain's mate was very sedate, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Yet fond of amusement too;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he played hopscotch with the starboard watch, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "While the captain tickled the crew.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the gunner we had was apparently mad, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For he sat on the after-rail", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And fired salutes with the captain's boots ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In the teeth of the booming gale.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The captain sat on the commodore's hat, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And dined in a royal way,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Off toasted pigs and pickles and figs ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And gunnery bread each day.", "") ?>
PagePoem(122, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The cook was Dutch and behaved as such, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For the diet he gave the crew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was a number of tons of hot cross-buns, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Served up with sugar and glue.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All nautical pride we laid aside, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And we cast our vessel ashore, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poo-Poo smiles ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And the Rumpletum-Bunders roar.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And shot at the whistling bee", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the cinnamon bats wore waterproof hats, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As they danced by the sounding sea.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On Rug-gub bark, from dawn till dark, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "We fed, till we all had grown ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Uncommonly shrunk; when a Chinese junk ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Came in from the Torriby Zone.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "So we cheerily put to sea;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And we left the crew of the junk to chew, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The bark of the Rug-gub tree.", "") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>