Irish pennons when they’re flying, Yo ho oh! Set old Mother Carey crying: Yo ho oh! When the sea-gulls dip for slush, Yo ho oh! Mother Carey stirs the mush: Yo ho oh! When one sea-gull follows you, Yo ho oh! Mother Carey soon makes it two: Yo ho oh! When the sea-gulls fly by two, Yo ho oh! Soon good luck will come to you: Yo ho oh! When the sea-gulls fly by threes, Yo ho oh! Soon you’ll have a spanking breeze: Yo ho oh! If seven follow you into port, Yo ho oh! There the sailors’ll have good sport: Yo ho oh! When a rope trails in the water, Yo ho oh! That is Mother Carey’s garter: Yo ho oh! When the clouds are red as roses, Yo ho oh! Those are Mother Carey’s posies: Yo ho oh! If you want to win your Mary, Yo ho oh! Throw out a biscuit to Mother Carey: Yo ho oh! And so they would have chantyd all night long, But some one broke it with another song. THE BIRD CREW The Albatross Is the captain and boss, Haul away boys, haul away! The sea-gull queers Are the officeers, Haul away boys, haul away! And the Carey chickens as I guess Is every one an A.B.S., Haul away boys, haul away! “I’ve heard,” said Chapin, “many folk agree, Those birds are souls of sailors lost at sea, And often one around the vessel flies To give us warning ere the storms arise.” “Talkin’ of spirits in the vasty deep,” Said Ezra Bullard, late of Marblehead, “There’s one at least who never goes to sleep, And mighty little good of him is said; His special dispensation is to watch The bottom of the ocean, and to see It don’t fall out—for if it did we catch The very direst kind of misery, For all the water runnin’ through the hole Would leave it dry as you can understand, And from the Arctic to the ’tother pole, ’Twould be one thunderin’ lot of empty land.” And thereupon in his south-wester tones He let us have the song of Davy Jones. DAVY JONES Down in the sea among sand and stones, There lives the old fellow called Davy Jones. When storms come up he sighs and groans, And that is the singing of Davy Jones. His chest is full of dead men’s bones, And that is the locker of Davy Jones.