Digital Tradition Mirror

A Capital Ship

A Capital Ship
(Charles Edward Carryl)

A capital ship for an ocean trip
Was the "Walloping Window Blind"
No wind that blew dismayed her crew
Or troubled the captain's mind
The man at the wheel was made to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow-ow-ow
Tho' it oft appeared when the gale had cleared
That he'd been in his bunk below

  So, blow ye winds, heigh-ho
  A-roving I will go
  I'll stay no more on England's shore
  So let the music play-ay-ay
  I'm off for the morning train
  To cross the raging main
  I'm off to my love with a boxing glove
  10,000 miles away

The bos'un's mate was very sedate
Yet fond of amusement too
He played hop-scotch with the starboard watch
While the captain tickled the crew
The gunner he was apparently mad
For he sat on the after ra-ra-rail
And fired salutes with the captain's boots
In the teeth of a booming gale

The captain sat on the commodore's hat
And dined in a royal way
Off pickles & figs & little roast pigs
And gunners bread each day
The cook was Dutch and behaved as such
For the diet he served the crew-ew-ew
Was a couple of tons of hot-cross buns
Served up with sugar and glue

Then we all fell ill as mariners will
On a diet that's rough and crude
And we shivered and shook as we dipped the cook
In a tub of his gluesome food
All nautical pride we cast aside
And we ran the vessel asho-o-ore
On the Gulliby Isles where the poopoo smiles
And the rubbily ubdugs roar

Composed of sand was that favored land
And trimmed with cinnamon straws
And pink and blue was the pleasing hue
Of the ticke-toe teaser's claws
We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge
And shot at the whistling bee-ee-ee
While the rugabug bats wore waterproof hats
As they dipped in the shining sea

On rugabug bark from dawn till dark
We dined till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk when a Chinese junk
Came up from the Torrible Zone
She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care
So we cherrily put to sea-ea-ea
And we left all the crew of the junk to chew
On the bark of the rubabug tree

NOTE: A parody of Ten Thousand Miles
JY

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!