Bacchus And The Pirates

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Title:     Bacchus And The Pirates
Author: Alfred Noyes [More Titles by Noyes]

Half a hundred terrible pig-tails, pirates famous in song and story,

Hoisting the old black flag once more, in a palmy harbour of Caribbee,

"Farewell" we waved to our brown-skinned lasses, and chorussing out to the billows of glory,

Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we followed the sunset over the sea.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred broad-sheet pirates

When the world was young!

Sea-roads plated with pieces of eight that rolled to a heaven by rum made mellow,

Heaved and coloured our barque's black nose where the Lascar sang to a twinkling star,

And the tangled bow-sprit plunged and dipped its point in the west's wild red and yellow,

Till the curved white moon crept out astern like a naked knife from a blue cymar.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred terrible pirates

When the world was young!

Half a hundred tarry pig-tails, Teach, the chewer of glass, had taught us,

Taught us to balance the plank ye walk, your little plank-bridge to Kingdom Come:

Half a score had sailed with Flint, and a dozen or so the devil had brought us

Back from the pit where Blackbeard lay, in Beelzebub's bosom, a-screech for rum.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred piping pirates

When the world was young!

There was Captain Hook (of whom ye have heard--so called from his terrible cold steel twister,

His own right hand having gone to a shark with a taste for skippers on pirate-trips),

There was Silver himself, with his cruel crutch, and the blind man Pew, with a phiz like a blister,

Gouged and white and dreadfully dried in the reek of a thousand burning ships.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred cut-throat pirates

When the world was young!

With our silver buckles and French cocked hats and our skirted coats (they were growing greener,

But green and gold look well when spliced! We'd trimmed 'em up wi' some fine fresh lace)

Bravely over the seas we danced to the horn-pipe tune of a concertina,

Cutlasses jetting beneath our skirts and cambric handkerchiefs all in place.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred elegant pirates

When the world was young!

And our black prow grated, one golden noon, on the happiest isle of the Happy Islands,

An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem, on the sparkling breast of the wine-dark deep,

An isle of blossom and yellow sand, and enchanted vines on the purple highlands,

Wi' grapes like melons, nay clustering suns, a-sprawl over cliffs in their noonday sleep.

While earth goes round let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred dream-struck pirates

When the world was young!

And lo! on the soft warm edge of the sand, where the sea like wine in a golden noggin

Creamed, and the rainbow-bubbles clung to his flame-red hair, a white youth lay,

Sleeping; and now, as his drowsy grip relaxed, the cup that he squeezed his grog in

Slipped from his hand and its purple dregs were mixed with the flames and flakes of spray.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred diffident pirates

When the world was young!

And we suddenly saw (had we seen them before? They were coloured like sand or the pelt on his shoulders)

His head was pillowed on two great leopards, whose breathing rose and sank with his own;

Now a pirate is bold, but the vision was rum and would call! for rum in the best of beholders,

And it seemed we had seen Him before, in a dream, with that flame-red hair and that vine-leaf crown.

And the earth went round, and the rum went round,

And softlier now we sung:

Half a hundred awe-struck pirates

When the world was young!

Now Timothy Hook (of whom ye have heard, with his talon of steel) our doughty skipper,

A man that, in youth being brought up pious, had many a book on his cabin-shelf,

Suddenly caught at a comrade's hand with the tearing claws of his cold steel flipper

And cried, "Great Thunder and Brimstone, boys, I've hit it at last! 'Tis Bacchus himself."

And the earth went round, and the rum went round,

And never a word we sung:

Half a hundred tottering pirates

When the world was young!

He flung his French cocked hat i' the foam (though its lace was the best of his wearing apparel):

We stared at him--Bacchus! The sea reeled round like a wine-vat splashing with purple dreams,

And the sunset-skies were dashed with blood of the grape as the sun like a new-staved barrel

Flooded the tumbling West with wine and spattered the clouds with crimson gleams.

And the earth went round, and our heads went round,

And never a word we sung:

Half a hundred staggering pirates

When the world was young!

Down to the ship for a fishing-net our crafty Hook sent Silver leaping;

Back he came on his pounding crutch, for all the world like a kangaroo;

And we caught the net and up to the Sleeper on hands and knees we all went creeping,

Flung it across him and staked it down! 'Twas the best of our dreams and the dream was true.

And the earth went round, and the rum went round,

And loudly now we sung:

Half a hundred jubilant pirates

When the world was young!

We had caught our god, and we got him aboard ere he woke (he was more than a little heavy);

Glittering, beautiful, flushed he lay in the lurching bows of the old black barque,

As the sunset died and the white moon dawned, and we saw on the island a star-bright bevy

Of naked Bacchanals stealing to watch through the whispering vines in the purple dark!

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our capstan song we sung:

Half a hundred innocent pirates

When the world was young!

Beautiful under the sailing moon, in the tangled net, with the leopards beside him,

Snared like a wild young red-lipped merman, wilful, petulant, flushed he lay;

While Silver and Hook in their big sea-boots and their boat-cloaks guarded and gleefully eyed him,

Thinking what Bacchus might do for a seaman, like standing him drinks, as a man might say.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

We sailed away and sung:

Half a hundred fanciful pirates

When the world was young!

All the grog that ever was heard of, gods, was it stowed in our sure possession?

O, the pictures that broached the skies and poured their colours across our dreams!

O, the thoughts that tapped the sunset, and rolled like a great torchlight procession

Down our throats in a glory of glories, a roaring splendour of golden streams!

And the earth went round, and the stars went round,

As we hauled the sheets and sung:

Half a hundred infinite pirates

When the world was young!

Beautiful, white, at the break of day, He woke and, the net in a smoke dissolving,

He rose like a flame, with his yellow-eyed pards and his flame-red hair like a windy dawn,

And the crew kept back, respectful like, till the leopards advanced with their eyes revolving,

Then up the rigging went Silver and Hook, and the rest of us followed with case-knives drawn.

While earth goes round, let rum go round,

Our cross-tree song we sung:

Half a hundred terrified pirates

When the world was young!

And "Take me home to my happy island!" he says. "Not I," sings Hook, "by thunder;

We'll take you home to a happier isle, our palmy harbour of Caribbee!"

"You won't!" says Bacchus, and quick as a dream the planks of the deck just heaved asunder,

And a mighty Vine came straggling up that grew from the depths of the wine-dark sea.

And the sea went round, and the skies went round,

As our cross-tree song we sung:

Half a hundred horrified pirates

When the world was young!

We were anchored fast as an oak on land, and the branches clutched and the tendrils quickened,

And bound us writhing like snakes to the spars! Ay, we hacked with our knives at the boughs in vain,

And Bacchus laughed loud on the decks below, as ever the tough sprays tightened and thickened,

And the blazing hours went by, and we gaped with thirst and our ribs were racked with pain

And the skies went round, and the sea swam round,

And we knew not what we sung:

Half a hundred lunatic pirates

When the world was young!

Bunch upon bunch of sunlike grapes, as we writhed and struggled and raved and strangled,

Bunch upon bunch of gold and purple daubed its bloom on our baked black lips.

Clustering grapes, O, bigger than pumpkins, just out of reach they bobbed and dangled

Over the vine-entangled sails of that most dumbfounded of pirate ships!

And the sun went round, and the moon came round,

And mocked us where we hung:

Half a hundred maniac pirates

When the world was young!

Over the waters the white moon winked its bruised old eye at our bowery prison,

When suddenly we were aware of a light such as never a moon or a ship's lamp throws,

And a shallop of pearl, like a Nautilus shell, came shimmering up as by magic arisen,

With sails: of silk and a glory around it that turned the sea to a rippling rose.

And our heads went round, and the stars went round,

At the song that cruiser sung:

Half a hundred goggle-eyed pirates

When the world was young!

Half a hundred rose-white Bacchanals hauled the ropes of that rosy cruiser!

Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old black barque;

And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: "Hi, stop!" cries Hook, "you frantic old boozer!

Belay, below there, don't you go and leave poor pirates to die in the dark!"

And the moon went round, and the stars went round,

As they all pushed off and sung:

Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals

When the world was young!

Over the seas they went and Bacchus he stands, with his yellow-eyed leopards beside him,

High on the poop of rose and pearl, and kisses his hand to us, pleasant as pie!

While the Bacchanals danced to their tambourines, and the vine-leaves flew, and Hook just eyed him

Once, as a man that was brought up pious, and scornfully hollers, "Well, you ain't shy!"

For all around him, vine-leaf crowned,

The wild white Bacchanals flung!

Nor it wasn't a sight for respectable pirates

When the world was young!

All around that rainbow

-Nautilus rippled the bloom of a thousand roses,

Nay, but the sparkle of fairy sea-nymphs breasting a fairy-like sea of wine,

Swimming around it in murmuring thousands, with white arms tossing; till--all that _we_ knows is

The light went out, and the night was dark, and the grapes had burst and their juice was--brine!

And the vines that bound our bodies round

Were plain wet ropes that clung,

Squeezing the light out o' fifty pirates

When the world was young!

Over the seas in the pomp of dawn a king's ship came with her proud flag flying.

Cloud upon cloud we watched her tower with her belts and her crowded zones of sail;

And an A.B. perched in a white crow's nest, with a brass-rimmed spy-glass quietly spying,

As we swallowed the lumps in our choking throats and uttered our last faint feeble hail!

And our heads went round as the ship went round,

And we thought how coves had swung:

All for playing at broad-sheet pirates

When the world was young!

Half a hundred trembling corsairs, all cut loose, but a trifle giddy,

We lands on their trim white decks at last and the bo'sun he whistles us good hot grog,

And we tries to confess, but there wasn't a soul from the Admiral's self to the gold-laced middy

But says, "They're delirious still, poor chaps," and the Cap'n he enters the fact in his log,

That his boat's crew found us nearly drowned

In a barrel without a bung--

Half a hundred suffering sea-cooks

When the world was young!

So we sailed by Execution Dock, where the swinging pirates haughty and scornful

Rattled their chains, and on Margate beach we came like a school-treat safe to land;

And one of us took to religion at once; and the rest of the crew, tho' their hearts were mournful,

Capered about as Christy Minstrels, while Hook conducted the big brass band.

And the sun went round, and the moon went round,

And, O, 'twas a thought that stung!

There was none to believe we were broad-sheet pirates

When the world was young!

Ah, yet (if ye stand me a noggin of rum) shall the old Blue Dolphin echo the story!

We'll hoist the white cross-bones again in our palmy harbour of Caribbee!

We'll wave farewell to our brown-skinned lasses and, chorussing out to the billows of glory,

Billows a-glitter with rum and gold, we'll follow the sunset over the sea!

While earth goes round, let rum go round!

O, sing it as we sung!

Half a hundred terrible pirates

When the world was young!

[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Bacchus And The Pirates

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