_By a man with a tarry queue,
_Who sat with a spy-glass in his hand,
And gazed on the waters blue;
His hair was white, but his eye was bright,
And straight was his ancient form,
And his brown old face bore many a trace
Of the battle and the storm._

I.

Ay, she was a ship! She showed her heels
To the swiftest of them all;
She weathered many a raging gale
And many a roaring squall.
And he--our Captain--of all the men
That ever sailed the sea,
There was never a one like Isaac Hull
To handle a ship, said we.
It was in one pleasant summer-time
That the _Constitution_ lay
A cable's length from an English ship
In the bight of Lisbon Bay.
Between that British crew and us
The looks were grim and glum,
For we thought of the war a few years back,
And hoped for a war to come.
The officers, though, were friendly still;
They'd meet some day in war,
And they knew they'd show their mettle then
As they'd shown it well before.
Yes, even the Captains, they were chums--
Our own old Do-and-Dare
And Dacres of that royal ship,
The saucy _Guerriere_.
And many and many a time I've seen
The two walk down the quay
With their yard-arms locked and their chapeaus cocked,
To gaze on the ships at sea.
But Dacres turned to Hull one day
And said: "They'd make a rare
And even stand-up single fight,
Those two ships lying there.
Now what say you--if the war does come,
As I think right well it may.
And the _Constitution_ and _Guerriere_
Should meet in single fray,
I'll bet you a hundred pounds or so--
A thousand, if you like--
The _Constitution_ that blessed day
Will run or sink or strike."
But Hull said: "I am too poor a man
To bet a sum like that.
Yet just for the sake of the stand you take
I'll wager, say, a hat."
The Captains laughed as the bet was made,
And the ships soon sailed away
From their peaceful, pleasant anchorage
In the bight of Lisbon Bay.

II.

The trouble came, as we knew it would,
And a joyous crew were we
When we said good-by to the old home port
And weighed for a cruise at sea,
For the Press Gang and the Search Eight
We had vowed to bear no more,
And we bade farewell to parley,
And welcome we bade to war.

[Illustration: FOR MANY A MILE WE SAILED.]

Along the grim New England coast
For many a mile we sailed,