They ‘pressed me on His Majesty’s frigate
The H.M.S. Carew,
It only took me a day to find
I was lodged with the Devils’s crew,
The Captain, ‘Black Jack’ Hawkins
Was a gentleman by name,
But on the ship he used the whip
To his undying shame.

I slipped and fell from the foremast arm
When I caught my foot in a stay,
And though a net kept me safe from harm
That wasn’t the Captain’s way,
He said I’d swim for my mortal sin
Told the crew to rope me through,
Then dragged me over the side and said,
‘We’re going to keel-haul you.’

The barnacles on the Carew’s hull
Nearly tore my back to shreds,
My lungs were so close to bursting that
I thought that I was dead.
They hauled me over the side again
The deck was red from my back,
At least I knew I was safe again
From a sudden shark attack.

They rubbed raw salt in my many wounds
Till I thought I was in hell,
While some of the crew had mocked and jeered
The Devil’s own cartel,
They wore tattoos of the skull and bones
It was strange for a Royal crew,
But they themselves had been Impressed
So they hated Hawkins too.

He used to stand on the quarter-deck
Quite close to the starboard rail,
Where he could see any slacking off
While we were under sail,
He’d tie the men to the nearest mast
And would whip, before the crew,
Till every man was inflamed and raw
And would plot what they would do.

It fell to me to devise a plan
That everyone agreed,
We had to get rid of this Devil man
It became our only creed,
So I took a rope when I climbed the mast
That was fixed above his head,
Then swung and booted him over the rail
So we thought that he was dead.

The crew then dashed to the starboard side
And they all looked down and cursed,
For Hawkins floated upon the tide,'
It couldn’t be much worse,
He shouted up, ‘This is mutiny!
I’ll flay that man to the bone.’
But all he got were the jeers of the crew
As the Captain sank like a stone.

David Lewis Paget

The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian . . .
Perhaps if summer ever came to rest
And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed
Through days like oceans in obsidian

Horizons, full of night's midsummer blaze;
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

In thee, I fondly hop’d to clasp
  A friend, whom death alone could sever;
Till envy, with malignant grasp,
  Detach’d thee from my breast for ever.


True, she has forc’d thee from my breast,
  Yet, in my heart, thou keep’st thy seat;
There, there, thine image still must rest,
  Until that heart shall cease to beat.

And, when the grave restores her dead,
  When life again to dust is given,
On thy dear breast I’ll lay my head—
  Without thee! where would be my Heaven?

I get drunk to forget myself
And for a little while, pretend I am someone else
Tortured souls feel the most
And me myself and I, don't mean to boast
But I've seen all the coasts

Swallowing me up whole
Pretty words don't mean much when I constantly drink in the ugly
I used to think alone was better
That if I was the one to hurt me
It would feel better than leave myself open for someone to scar me

But the winter winds are blowing from the skies
And this autumn jacket lining is frail and thin

Sipping on bottles of reoccurring notions
Soaring through broken promises

Don't leave me lonely
One foot, another day
Once more, the hallowing wind

\



Your beautiful heart has a tiny little hole
Goin’ b’bap-bim-boom boom-bap...b’bap
The mitral-valve-prolapsed leaky little hole
It goes ba-***-bap, bitty-bap, rat-ta tat tat

Instead of the traditional ba-dum, ba-dum
And aside from the fact that I like the beat
There’s another reason, baby, I like you, (yum)
Why I lay myself down at your ivory feet

It’s not because your heart sound like a drum
Or the fact your soul shines bright and true
It’s not just the *** tuh-tum tum tum
...It’s because I have a hole in my heart too

The church flings forth a battled shade
Over the moon-blanched sward:
The church; my gift; whereto I paid
My all in hand and hoard;
Lavished my gains
With stintless pains
To glorify the Lord.

I squared the broad foundations in
Of ashlared masonry;
I moulded mullions thick and thin,
Hewed fillet and ogee;
I circleted
Each sculptured head
With nimb and canopy.

I called in many a craftsmaster
To fix emblazoned glass,
To figure Cross and Sepulchure
On dossal, boss, and brass.
My gold all spent,
My jewels went
To gem the cups of Mass.

I borrowed deep to carve the screen
And raise the ivoried Rood;
I parted with my small demesne
To make my owings good.
Heir-looms unpriced
I sacrificed,
Until debt-free I stood.

So closed the task. “Deathless the Creed
Here substanced!” said my soul:
“I heard me bidden to this deed,
And straight obeyed the call.
Illume this fane,
That not in vain
I build it, Lord of all!”

But, as it chanced me, then and there
Did dire misfortunes burst;
My home went waste for lack of care,
My sons rebelled and curst;
Till I confessed
That aims the best
Were looking like the worst.

Enkindled by my votive work
No burnng faith I find;
The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk,
And give my toil no mind;
From nod and wink
I read they think
That I am fool and blind.

My gift to God seems futile, quite;
The world moves as erstwhile;
And powerful Wrong on feeble Right
Tramples in olden style.
My faith burns down,
I see no crown;
But Cares, and Griefs, and Guile.

So now, the remedy? Yea, this:
I gently swing the door
Here, of my fane—no soul to wis—
And cross the patterned floor
To the rood-screen
That stands between
The nave and inner chore.

The rich red windows dim the moon,
But little light need I;
I mount the prie-dieu, lately hewn
From woods of rarest dye;
Then from below
My garment, so,
I draw this cord, and tie

One end thereof around the beam
Midway ‘twixt Cross and truss:
I noose the nethermost extreme,
And in ten seconds thus
I journey hence—
To that land whence
No rumour reaches us.

Well: Here at morn they’ll light on one
Dangling in mockery
Of what he spent his substance on
Blindly and uselessly!…
“He might,” they’ll say,
“Have built, some way,
A cheaper gallows-tree!”

I
A SPECKLED cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to providence.
I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it's found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering-witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?
I slept on my three-legged stool by thc fire.
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,
Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap?
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name, she had heard.
It may be, and had not stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

ANOTHER SONG OF A FOOL

THIS great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.
Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look;
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.
Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet.
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.