Sea-roads plated with pieces of eight that rolled to a heaven by rum made mellow, Heaved and coloured our barque's black nose where the Lascar sang to a twinkling star, And the tangled bow-sprit plunged and dipped its point in the west's wild red and yellow, Till the curved white moon crept out astern like a naked knife from a blue cymar. _While earth goes round, let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred terrible pirates When the world was young!_ Half a hundred tarry pig-tails, Teach, the chewer of glass, had taught us, Taught us to balance the plank ye walk, your little plank-bridge to Kingdom Come: Half a score had sailed with Flint, and a dozen or so the devil had brought us Back from the pit where Blackbeard lay, in Beelzebub's bosom, a-screech for rum. _While earth goes round, let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred piping pirates When the world was young!_ There was Captain Hook (of whom ye have heard--so called from his terrible cold steel twister, His own right hand having gone to a shark with a taste for skippers on pirate-trips), There was Silver himself, with his cruel crutch, and the blind man Pew, with a phiz like a blister, Gouged and white and dreadfully dried in the reek of a thousand burning ships. _While earth goes round, let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred cut-throat pirates When the world was young!_ With our silver buckles and French cocked hats and our skirted coats (they were growing greener, But green and gold look well when spliced! We'd trimmed 'em up wi' some fine fresh lace) Bravely over the seas we danced to the horn-pipe tune of a concertina, Cutlasses jetting beneath our skirts and cambric handkerchiefs all in place. _While earth goes round, let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred elegant pirates When the world was young!_ And our black prow grated, one golden noon, on the happiest isle of the Happy Islands, An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem, on the sparkling breast of the wine-dark deep, An isle of blossom and yellow sand, and enchanted vines on the purple highlands, Wi' grapes like melons, nay clustering suns, a-sprawl over cliffs in their noonday sleep. _While earth goes round let rum go round, Our capstan song we sung: Half a hundred dream-struck pirates When the world was young!_