TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

All misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been left unchanged.

THE BUCCANEER BOOK

The Buccaneer Book

Songs of the Black Flag

By Alden Noble

Green Mountain Press

1908

Acknowledgement is hereby made to The Blue Sky Press, Lippincott’s, Clayton F. Summy, and the Cosmopolitan, for their permitting the reprint of some of the matter contained in this book.

Copyright, 1908, by A. C. Noble.

Contents

Dedication

To T. W. S.

Ten years ago you found an idle prow

And sent her forth to seek enchanted seas;

Under your wharf she comes to anchor now,

Bearing to you, old friend, her argosies.

Proem

The graves are yours that have no name,

Yours were the keels that left no trace,

Save in smoke and sorrow and shame,—

What have ye now to face?

Yours were the times when blood was red,

Yours were the years when life was cheap;

All is over: you are dead:

Gentlemen, soundly sleep!

Soundly sleep with steel at your side,

Dagger and cutlass, stained to the hilt,

Lying so still—Death for your bride—

In your splendid courage and guilt.

You have fought the fight, you have paid the vow,

Sleep an ye can, then, under the years;

We drain one beaker unto you now:

I give you: The Buccaneers!

“Who hath not cried ‘Thalassa’ in his soul?”

The Wastrel

I am the son of Bor the Buccaneer,

Who frighted the first petrel to her lair,—

I bend my bows where danger drives most near,

My grave shall be where dying is most fair.

(O ye who prowl by sea-wind, hear ye this!)

Down the white way that marks the peril-line

I hear the mad white mermaids, drunk o’ the deep,

Those snarling, singing voices of the brine,

From throats that yawn for eyes that never sleep.

(O fickle mermaids of the barren kiss!)

I am the soul that flouts the overseas,

That curbs the wrenching billow-bits of Time,

My prow first pierced the strange Hesperides,

And that first keel of mine,—how deep in slime!

(O ye who slew by sunrise, mark ye now:)

Mine are the lips which Death’s grey lips have kissed

Deeply and often round his loving-cup;

I see his beckoning eyrie draped in mist

In every cloud that midnight conjures up.

(Yet, mark ye, Fear hath never stained my brow.)

I follow still the road that knows no dust,

I plague the wind-ways with unwearied sail,

And in my veins the flickering Wanderlust

Flames till the panting blood is stilled and pale:

(But ye who know me, know I may not die!)

Nay, till the One Wave roll again, as rolled

That first imperious ocean, I must drive

The dark, swart stallions of the Uncontrolled

Home to their stabling, conquered but alive.

(O ye who drave them longest, let me by!)

Drinking Song

The sea swings mad in the raging grip

Of the seething, stinging gale,

It moans its hate with a yearning wrath

That bids fair cheeks go pale,—

But fill the bowl to its brimming tip,—

Drink! for tonight we sail.

Ay, fill the bowl and drain the bowl,

Sing hey for the brimming ale,

And fill and drain—again—again—

Till the smoking wassails fail,

Then hurl the bowl at the trembling host,

Drink! for tonight we sail.

The sleet beats down like a rain of blows

On a coat of iron mail.

And faint and thin through the ringing din

Is heard the lookout’s hail,—

But it’s up and up with the foaming cup,

Drink! for tonight we sail.

And it’s hurl the cup at the landlord’s head

And it’s little his threats avail

For the unpaid score,—with joyous roar

It’s jeer at the beckoning gaol,

And it’s yell farewell through the night of hell,—

Drink, for tonight we sail!

“Sigh No More, Ladies”

The stars are like thine eyes, my dear,

That sparkle o’er the glass,

The night’s less fair than thy bright hair

So let reproaches pass;

I will avow I love thee now

But sorry rogues are men,

And I have loved before, my dear,

And I shall love again.

The bubbles are thy laugh, my dear,

That flash up in the wine,

I like to think that thee I drink

In every draught of mine;

I like to hear thy laughter clear

So laugh to please me, then,—

But I have loved before, my dear,

And I shall love again.

The sailor-man is free, my dear,

And sailor-men abound,

While I, my dear, am a buccaneer,

So let the glass go round;

I carry my trade, be it ship or maid,

In spite of gods and men,—

As I have loved before, my dear,

So I shall love again.

Kiss me again for luck, my dear,

And I will kiss for love,

For I have seen nor maid nor quean

Thy beauty’s not above;

I love, and yet, I shall forget

—And where is your beauty then?—

For I have loved before, my dear,

And I shall love again.

The End of the Fight

The fight is fought, the foe is sunk,

The tale is told for the golden junk,

And the Skipper sleeps in his final bunk,—

Ho! for Davy Jones!

We sighted her twenty below the Horn,

On a restless day in the wakeful morn,

Well for her had she ne’er been born,

Born for Davy Jones.

Her crew was many and stout and brave,

No quarter wanted and none we gave,

And we left the sick for the shark to save,

Save from Davy Jones.

We that were cool when the fight begun

Were red and grey by the nooning sun

Ere ever the stubborn goal was won,—

Meat for Davy Jones.

With a score of gashes her captain died,

But he heaved the booty over the side

Into the Locker that beckoned wide,

The Locker of Davy Jones.

The foe is sunk where the wave is blue,

And Davy laughs as he gets his due,

Our Skipper and half his swarthy crew,—

Ho for Davy Jones!

To a Merchant Sailor

Be yours the prudent sailing

From harbor up to town,

Your timid women wailing

Whenever rain comes down;

A mild and easy creeping

From market-place to mart,

A sound and dreamless sleeping,—

Sign of a moral heart!

Be yours the dreary climbing

Of hemp and mesh and mast,

And after proper priming

Up to a Mate at last;

Then years of grog-and-waters,

Of starb’rd, luff, and lee,

And seven sons and daughters

In a shanty by the sea.

And endless out-and-inning,

And ceaseless back-and-forth,

And toil that lacks the sinning

To make the toiling worth;

And never blood of human

To paint your tarry hand,—

And sorrow come o’ woman

To meet you when you land.

Be yours the feeble fighting

That keeps the liver white,

Your turn-the-other smiting

That makes a mock of Fight;—

A truce to your cautious guarding

Of the bastions of the bay ...

I sail to a wild bombarding

Of the white walls of Cathay!

The Love o’ Ships

O it is ours to hear you, Love,

That laugh like a siren on a siren shore,

With the blue of your eyes like the blue above,

Your yellow hair as the yellow sands before;

You ride on the wind and call us, Sweet,

At the dawn, the purple dawn of the daring day,

And the catch of your breath lends the breakers feet

To help our hearts obey (frail hearts!),

To help our hearts obey.

’Tis ours to taste the kiss of your mouth

Like the faintest fume of the salt of the sunrise sea,

When the eyes of you flame as the sun of the south,

And your hair, your buoyant yellow hair is free;

’Tis ours to feel the sting of your breath

That quickens our hearts, as the waves are quicked by the wind,—

To follow you, Love, till your jealous Death

Finds us and strikes us blind (poor eyes!)

Finds us and leaves us blind.

We in your worship battle and dare

And make of our lives a toy and a jape, content

To see the glint of the sun in your hair,

The ringing deep in your pagan spirit blent;

We follow and woo and are fain to wed

For you have all the wealth of the world to dower,—

Though our honour has died where faith lies dead

We barter them both for power, (sad fools!)

We fling them away for power.

And sure we see, when the foam is free,

And the hissing waves are hurtling over the rail,

Your form afloat on the film of the sea,

And we fare drunk on a dream of your forehead pale.

We yearn to the goal of your luring lips,

Forgetting the clasp and the human kiss of earth,—

And we die in the love of you, Love o’ Ships,

Who have sought you from our birth (mad souls!)

Who have loved you from our birth.

Execution Dock

The wind sings high around a corse

That hangs wi’ a shriveled smock,

Its echoes die in the desolate sky

O’er Execution Dock.

The wind has many an eager hand

To harry the grisly Thing

That whirls and spins with fearful grins

That haunt remembering.

The wild storm-demons of the night

Hurl shuddering breaths of pain

To mingle drear in the winter air

With the clang of the choking chain.

The long lean posts rise high and black

To the cross-beam where It sways,

While down below, in the humble snow,

A woman kneels and prays.

The Plank

(A Double Rondeau)

Whose turn next to take his stand

Where the plank reels black above the blue,—

To wrench in vain at the fettered hand?—

Ere the sea shall smother the last adieu?

’Mid the gibes and jeers of the conquering crew

At the devil’s drift of the dread command

That ends the hopeless interview,—

Whose turn next to take his stand

On the oaken road to a farther land,

(Narrow and oaken, seen of few,

For the eye were steady indeed that scanned

Where the plank reels black above the blue)

To know the fear of the souls that slew,

The thrust in the back of the goading brand,

To feel on the forehead the fatal dew,

To wrench in vain at the fettered hand,

With head held high, but heart unmanned,

With cheek turned pale to the breeze that blew,—

For his bones shall lie on the dipsey sand

Ere the sea shall smother the last adieu?

Gods of the false, and gods of the true!

Grant that these fiends may understand

The things that on their plank we knew!—

That one may say to that cursed band:

Whose turn next?

The Buccaneer

(A Song Story)

“It is related of the notorious Pirate known as the Scourge of the Caribs, that he would never have to do with any woman, saving only one; and her he held only a single hour in his arms, yet ever in his heart. And their meeting happed of an early morn, during his sacking of her native Town of Harnadino, in the Year of Our Lord, sixteen hundred and forty-two.”—Armilaud’s Chronicle.

1. The Sailing

Greet ye the morning, laugh her up,

And sing the Sun below,

For it’s out wi’ me to the Carib Sea

Where the scented east-winds blow;

O the day is new and the galleons few

That cling to the desperate rendezvous

We know, we know;

So lay your lingering steel away

And seamen be for another day,

For another Sun and our goal is won,

Out on the Carib Sea!

For Harnadino harbor lies

But fifty leagues ahead,

So an’ we speak no sail this week

We dine on Spanish bread;

So an’ we grip no scented ship

There’s a fairer goal to our golden trip

I’ the bay, i’ the bay;

So handle your hemp as ye polish your steel,

Gold’s in the offing, war’s at the wheel,—

And you’re out wi’ me to the Carib Sea,