OUR gentle pirate ancestors from off the Frisian Isles

Kept station where we now patrol so many weary miles:

There were no International Laws of Hall or Halleck then,

They only knew the simple rule of "Death to beaten men."

And what they judged a lawful prize was any sail they saw

From Scarboro' to the sandy isles along the Saxon shore.

We differ from our ancestors' conception of a prize,

And we cruise about like Agag 'neath Sir Samuel Evans' eyes;

But on one eternal subject we would certainly agree:

It's seldom you can see a mile across the Northern sea,

For as the misty clouds came down and settled wet and cold,

The sodden halliards creaked and strained as to the swell they rolled.

Each yellow-bearded pirate knew beyond the veil of white

The prize of all the prizes must be passing out of sight;

And drearily they waited while metheglin in a skin

Was passed along the benches, and the oars came sliding in;

Then scramasax and battleaxe were polished up anew,

And they waited for the fog to lift, the same as me and you;

Though we're waiting on the bottom at the twenty fathom line,

We are burnishing torpedoes to a Sunday morning shine.

The sailor pauses as he quaffs his tot of Navy rum,

And listens to a noise that drowns the circulator's hum:

"D'y 'ear those blank propellers, Bill—the blinking female dog—

That's Tirpitz in the 'Indenburg gone past us in the fog!"