A SAILOR'S TALE
I was cruising down Sand Street one fine summers night,
When a close-hulled young damsel hove well into sight
You could tell she was trim by the cut of her jib,
Which were reefed so tightly, you could count all her ribs
Her booms were fresh paint, her quarter-decks bare,
The cloth-like new canvas, she had rope yarn for hair.
So I breaks out me hawser, and takes her in tow,
And down the street we sailed, like two ships would go.
We tacked into an alley, that wasn't very neat,
And moored fore and aft, at the end of the street.
She took me topside to her cozy little nook,
And there in her fo'castle, I dropped me mud hook.
She stripped off her tarpaulin and lay bare her decks,
You could see down her bilges, Oh God!!what a wreck.
She burnt all my rigging clear down to the hull,
And off to the sick-bay, my punt I did scull.
With my sparging gaff splintered and my fo'castle unslung,
"Well", said the doctor, "Your bowsprit is sprung"..
So I lay there in drydock four weeks and a day,
And my advice about women....is stay out of their way.........
