Home ⇒ 📌John Masefield ⇒ Captain Stratton's Fancy
Captain Stratton's Fancy
OH some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white,
And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight;
But rum alone’s the tipple, and the heart’s delight
Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French,
And some’ll swallow tay and stuff fit only for a wench;
But I’m for right Jamaica till I roll beneath the bench,
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
Oh some are for the lily, and some are for the rose,
But I am for the sugar-cane that in Jamaica grows;
For it’s that that makes the bonny drink to warm my copper nose,
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
Oh some are fond of fiddles, and a song well sung,
And some are all for music for to lilt upon the tongue;
But mouths were made for tankards, and for sucking at the bung,
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
Oh some are fond of dancing, and some are fond of dice,
And some are all for red lips, and pretty lasses’ eyes;
But a right Jamaica puncheon is a finer prize
To the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
Oh some that’s good and godly ones they hold that it’s a sin
To troll the jolly bowl around, and let the dollars spin;
But I’m for toleration and for drinking at an inn,
Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
Oh some are sad and wretched folk that go in silken suits,
And there’s a mort of wicked rogues that live in good reputes;
So I’m for drinking honestly, and dying in my boots,
Like an old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- Captain Teach alias Black Beard Edward Teach was a native of Bristol, and sailed from that port On board a privateer, in search of sport, As one of the crew, during the French War in that station, And for personal courage he soon gained his Captain’s approbation. ‘Twas in the spring of 1717, Captajn Harnigold and Teach sailed from Providence […]...
- A Satisfactory Reform A merry burgomaster In a burgh upon the Rhine Said, “Our burghers all are Far too fond of drinking wine.” So the merry burgomaster, When the burgomasters met, Bade them look into the matter Ere the thing went farther yet. And the merry burgomasters Did decide the only way To alleviate the evil Without worry […]...
- Der mann im keller How cool and fair this cellar where My throne a dusky cask is; To do no thing but just to sing And drown the time my task is. The cooper he’s Resolved to please, And, answering to my winking, He fills me up Cup after cup For drinking, drinking, drinking. Begrudge me not This cosy […]...
- O Captain! My Captain! 1 O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of […]...
- Dream Song 74: Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry Did will not bear thought. Feeling no pain, Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter Explaining how bad it had been In this world. Old yellow, in a gown Might have made a difference, ‘these lower beauties’, And chartreuse could have mattered “Kyoto, Toledo, Benares—the […]...
- Dream Song 1: Huffy Henry hid the day Huffy Henry hid the day, Unappeasable Henry sulked. I see his point, —a trying to put things over. It was the thought that they thought They could do it made Henry wicked & away. But he should have come out and talked. All the world like a woolen lover Once did seem on Henry’s side. […]...
- Captain Craig I I doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig, Or called him by his name, or looked at him So curiously, or so concernedly, As they had looked at ashes; but a few- Say five or six of us-had found somehow The spark in him, and we […]...
- 308. The Epitaph on Captain Matthew Henderson STOP, passenger! my story’s brief, And truth I shall relate, man; I tell nae common tale o’ grief, For Matthew was a great man. If thou uncommon merit hast, Yet spurn’d at Fortune’s door, man; A look of pity hither cast, For Matthew was a poor man. If thou a noble sodger art, That passest […]...
- Fancy Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind’s cage-door, She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar. O sweet Fancy! let her loose; Summer’s joys are spoilt […]...
- My Fancy I painted her a gushing thing, With years about a score; I little thought to find they were A least a dozen more; My fancy gave her eyes of blue, A curly auburn head: I came to find the blue a green, The auburn turned to red. She boxed my ears this morning, They tingled […]...
- She's All My Fancy Painted Him She’s all my fancy painted him (I make no idle boast); If he or you had lost a limb, Which would have suffered most? He said that you had been to her, And seen me here before; But, in another character, She was the same of yore. There was not one that spoke to us, […]...
- Fancy Dress Some Brave, awake in you to-night, Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight Stirred in the feather on your head. Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight Above high cheek-bones smeared with red, Unveiled cragg’d centuries, and led You, the snared wraith of bygone things – Wild ancestries of trackless Kings – Out of the past… So […]...
- Dream Song 77: Seedy Henry rose up shy Seedy Henry rose up shy in de world & shaved & swung his barbells, duded Henry up And p. a.’d poor thousands of persons on topics of grand Moment to Henry, ah to those less & none. Wif a book of his in either hand He is stript down to move on. €”Come away, Mr. […]...
- A rhine-land drinking song If our own life is the life of a flower (And that’s what some sages are thinking), We should moisten the bud with a health-giving flood And ’twill bloom all the sweeter Yes, life’s the completer For drinking, And drinking, And drinking. If it be that our life is a journey (As many wise folk […]...
- Sonnet XLVII: To Fancy Thee, Queen of Shadows! shall I still invoke, Still love the scenes thy sportive pencil drew, When on mine eyes the early radiance broke Which shew’d the beauteous rather than the true! Alas! long since those glowing tints are dead, And now ’tis thine in darkest hues to dress The spot where pale Experience hangs […]...
- We Two Boys Together Clinging WE two boys together clinging, One the other never leaving, Up and down the roads going-North and South excursions making, Power enjoying-elbows stretching-fingers clutching, Arm’d and fearless-eating, drinking, sleeping, loving, No law less than ourselves owning-sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming-air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, […]...
- Going Up Yoyang Tower We climbed Yoyang Tower with All the scene around coming Into vision; looking up the Great River seeing boats turn And enter the Tungting Lake; geese Crying farewell to the river As they flew south; evening falling As if mountain tops upt up the moon With their lips; and we in the Yoyang Tower as […]...
- The Death of Captain Ward ‘Twas about the beginning of the past century Billy Bowls was pressed into the British Navy, And conveyed on board the “Waterwitch” without delay, Scarce getting time to bid farewell to the villagers of Fairway. And once on board the “Waterwitch” he resolved to do his duty, And if he returned safe home he’d marry […]...
- If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, If you’re proud because of fortune or the clever things you do Then I’ll play no second fiddle: I’m a prouder man than you! If you think that your profession […]...
- Dream Song 13: God bless Henry God bless Henry. He lived like a rat, With a thatch of hair on his head In the beginning. Henry was not a coward. Much. He never deserted anything; instead He stuck, when things like pity were thinning. So may be Henry was a human being. Let’s investigate that. … We did; okay. He is […]...
- Dream Song 12: Sabbath There is an eye, there was a slit. Nights walk, and confer on him fear. The strangler tree, the dancing mouse Confound his vision; then they loosen it. Henry widens. How did Henry House Himself ever come here? Nights run. Tes yeux bizarres me suivent When loth at landfall soft I leave. The soldiers, Coleridge […]...
- Dream Song 5: Henry sats in de bar & was odd Henry sats in de bar & was odd, Off in the glass from the glass, At odds wif de world & its god, His wife is a complete nothing, St Stephen Getting even. Henry sats in de plane & was gay. Careful Henry nothing said aloud But where a Virgin out of cloud To her […]...
- Perfection If I could practise what I preach, Of fellows there would few be finer; If I were true to what I teach My life would be a lot diviner. If I would act the way I speak, Of halo I might be a winner: The spirit wills, the flesh is weak, I’m just a simple […]...
- Chiang Chin Chiu See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! See at the mirror In the High Hall Aged men bewailing white locks – In the morning, threads of silk, In the evening flakes of snow. Snatch the joys Of life as they come […]...
- Dream Song 129: Thin as a sheet his mother came to him Thin as a sheet his mother came to him During the screaming evenings after he did it, Touched F. J.’s dead hand. The parlour was dark, he was the first pall-bearer in, He gave himself a dare & then did it, The thing was quite unplanned, Riots for Henry the unstructured dead, His older playmate […]...
- The Logical Vegetarian “Why shouldn’t I have a purely vegetarian drink? Why shouldn’t I take vegetables in their highest form, so to speak? The modest vegetarians ought to stick to wine or beer, plain vegetable drinks, instead of filling their goblets with the blood of bulls and elephants, as all conventional meat-eaters do, I suppose” Dalroy. You will […]...
- Dream Song 7: 'The Prisoner of Shark Island' with Paul Muni Henry is old, old; for Henry remembers Mr Deeds’ tuba, & the Cameo, & the race in Ben Hur, —The Lost World, with sound, & The Man from Blankey’s, which he did not dig, Nor did he understand one caption of, Bewildered Henry, while the Big Ones laughed. Now Henry is unmistakably a Big One. […]...
- Dream Song 29: There sat down, once, a thing There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart Só heavy, if he had a hundred years & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time Henry could not make good. Starts again always in Henry’s ears The little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. And there is another thing he has in mind Like […]...
- Room 5: The Concert Singer I’m one of these haphazard chaps Who sit in cafes drinking; A most improper taste, perhaps, Yet pleasant, to my thinking. For, oh, I hate discord and strife; I’m sadly, weakly human; And I do think the best of life Is wine and song and woman. Now, there’s that youngster on my right Who thinks […]...
- The Captain Here all the day she swings from tide to tide, Here all night long she tugs a rusted chain, A masterless hulk that was a ship of pride, Yet unashamed: her memories remain. It was Nelson in the ‘Captain’, Cape St. Vincent far alee, With the ‘Vanguard’ leading s’uth’ard in the haze Little Jervis and […]...
- CAPTAIN WHO VOYAGES NO MORE Troubled slumbering of things, the curtain blown aside By the gush of the salty wind, the advent of the tide Mixing grains of dry sand, the disjoined palimpsest, The thin wing beating under the chest, restlessly, The splinters of far-off vessels stuck in the sea, Not entering the harbour, as if they have something to […]...
- Captain Carpenter Captain Carpenter rose up in his prime Put on his pistols and went riding out But had got wellnigh nowhere at that time Till he fell in with ladies in a rout. It was a pretty lady and all her train That played with him so sweetly but before An hour she’d taken a sword […]...
- Bacchus Bring me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. Let its grapes the morn salute From a nocturnal root, Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; […]...
- Paying The Captain We get on a boat, never mind if it sinks, we pay The captain by throwing him overboard. And when he Gets back onboard we say, captain, please don’t be Angry. And he forgives us this time. And so we throw Him overboard again just to make sure we have fully Paid the price we […]...
- Brothers How lovely the elder brother’s Life all laced in the other’s, Lóve-laced!-what once I well Witnessed; so fortune fell. When Shrovetide, two years gone, Our boys’ plays brought on Part was picked for John, Young Jóhn: then fear, then joy Ran revel in the elder boy. Their night was come now; all Our company thronged […]...
- The Return of Morgan and Fingal And there we were together again – Together again, we three: Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all, They had come for the night with me. The spirit of joy was in Morgan’s wrist, There were songs in Fingal’s throat; And secure outside, for the spray to drench, Was a tossed and empty boat. And there were […]...
- The Captain of the Push As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush, From a slum in Jones’s Alley sloped the Captain of the Push; And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South, As he hooked his little finger in the corners of his mouth. Then his whistle, loud and shrill, woke […]...
- To Captain H – d, of the 65th Regiment Say, muse divine, can hostile scenes delight The warrior’s bosom in the fields of fight? Lo! here the christian and the hero join With mutual grace to form the man divine. In H – D see with pleasure and surprise, Where valour kindles, and where virtue lies: Go, hero brave, still grace the post of […]...
- Captain Orlando Killion Oh, you young radicals and dreamers, You dauntless fledglings Who pass by my headstone, Mock not its record of my captaincy in the army And my faith in God! They are not denials of each other. Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of […]...
- Dream Song 109: She mentioned 'worthless' & he took it in She mentioned ‘worthless’ & he took it in, Degraded Henry, at the ebb of love— O at the end of love— In undershorts, with visitors, whereof We can say their childlessness is ending. Love Finally took over, After their two adopted: she has a month to go And Henry has (perhaps) many months to go […]...