The Dead Mens Song | Page 2

the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?The mate was fixed by the bos'n's pike,?The bos'n brained with a marlinspike?And Cookey's throat was marked belike
It had been gripped
By fingers ten;?And there they lay,
All good dead men,?Like break-o'-day in a boozing-ken--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of a whole ship's list--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Dead and bedamned, and the rest gone whist!--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?The skipper lay with his nob in gore?Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore--?And the scullion he was stabbed times four.
And there they lay,
And the soggy skies?Dripped all day long
In up-staring eyes--?At murk sunset and at foul sunrise--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Ten of the crew had the Murder mark--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?'Twas a cutlass swipe, or an ounce of lead,
Or a yawing hole in a battered head--?And the scuppers glut with a rotting red.
And there they lay--
Aye, damn my eyes!--?All lookouts clapped
On paradise--?All souls bound just contrariwise--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
[Illustration]
Fifteen men of 'em good and true--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Every man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?There was chest on chest full of Spanish gold,?With a ton of plate in the middle hold,?And the cabins riot of stuff untold.
And they lay there
That had took the plum,?With sightless glare
And their lips struck dumb,?While we shared all by the rule of thumb--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

_More was seen through the sternlight screen--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Chartings ondoubt where a woman had been--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?A flimsy shift on a bunker cot,?With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot?And the lace stiff-dry in a purplish blot.
Or was she wench ...
Or some shuddering maid...??That dared the knife
And that took the blade!?By God! she was stuff for a plucky jade--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight,?With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight,?And we heaved 'em over and out of sight--
With a yo-heave-ho!
And a fare-you-well!?And a sullen plunge
In the sullen swell?Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PICTURING _the_ INDIVIDUAL
One of my earliest recollections of my friend and business associate for very many, very short and very happy years, is a conversation in the old Chicago Press Club rooms on South Clark Street, near Madison, in the early 90's, about three o'clock one morning, when the time for confidences arrives--if ever it does. What his especial business in Chicago was at that particular moment makes no particular difference. He might have been rehearsing "The Ogallallas," or mayhap he was on duty as Kentucky commissioner to the World's Fair. As a matter of mere fact he was there and we had spent an evening and part of a morning together and were bent on extending the session to daybreak. Sunrise on Madison Street always was a wonderful sight. The dingy buildings on that busy old thoroughfare, awakening to day-life, then appeared as newly painted in the mellow of the early morning.
My companion knew something was coming. Our chairs were close together--side by side--and we were looking each in the other's face. He had his hand back of his ear. "Allison," I said--and I suppose that after a night in his company I was so impregnated with his strong personality that I had my hand back of my ear too, and spoke in a low, slightly drawling nasal, like his--"Allison," I repeated, "don't you miss a great deal by being deaf?" Now, it is said with tender regret, but a deep and sincere regard for truth, that my friend makes a virtue of a slight deafness. He uses it to avoid arguments, assignments, conventions, parlor parties--and bores--and deftly evades a whole lot of "duty" conversations as well. Of course I know all this now, but in those days I thought his lack of complete hearing an infirmity calling for a sort of sympathy on my part. Anyway it was three o'clock in the morning, and...!
"Well," he replied, after a little pause, "I can't say that I do. You see, if anyone ever says anything worth repeating, he always tells me about it anyway." Such is the philosophical trend that makes Allison an original with a peculiar gift of expression both in the spoken and written word. He is literary to his finger tips, in the finest sense of the word, for pure love, his own enjoyment and the pleasure of his friends. There is an ambition for you! With all his genuine modesty (and he is painfully modest) by which the light