But better, wife, I like to booze on the days Ere the Old Order foundered in these very frays, And tradition was lost and we learned strange ways. Often I think on the brave cruises then; Re-sailing them in memory, I hail the press o’ men On the gunned promenade where rolling they go, Ere the dog-watch expire and break up the show. The Laced Caps I see between forward guns; Away from the powder-room they puff the cigar; “Three days more, hey, the donnas and the dons!” “Your Zeres widow, will you hunt her up, Starr?” The Laced Caps laugh, and the bright waves too; Very jolly, very wicked, both sea and crew, Nor heaven looks sour on either, I guess, Nor Pecksniff he bosses the gods’ high mess. Wistful ye peer, wife, concerned for my head, And how best to get me betimes to my bed. But king o’ the club, the gayest golden spark, Sailor o’ sailors, what sailor do I mark? Tom Tight, Tom Tight, no fine fellow finer, A cutwater nose, ay, a spirited soul; But, bowsing away at the well-brewed bowl, He never bowled back from that last voyage to China. Tom was lieutenant in the brig-o’-war famed When an officer was hung for an arch-mutineer, But a mystery cleaved, and the captain was blamed, And a rumpus too raised, though his honor it was clear. And Tom he would say, when the mousers would try him, And with cup after cup o’ Burgundy ply him: “Gentlemen, in vain with your wassail you beset, For the more I tipple, the tighter do I get.” No blabber, no, not even with the can— True to himself and loyal to his clan. Tom blessed us starboard and d—d us larboard, Right down from rail to the streak o’ the garboard. Nor less, wife, we liked him.—Tom was a man In contrast queer with Chaplain Le Fan, Who blessed us at morn, and at night yet again, D—ning us only in decorous strain; Preaching ’tween the guns—each cutlass in its place— From text that averred old Adam a hard case. I see him—Tom—on _horse-block_ standing, Trumpet at mouth, thrown up all amain, An elephant’s bugle, vociferous demanding Of topmen aloft in the hurricane of rain, “Letting that sail there your faces flog? Manhandle it, men, and you’ll get the good grog!” O Tom, but he knew a blue-jacket’s ways, And how a lieutenant may genially haze; Only a sailor sailors heartily praise.