_And the sea went round, and the skies went round,
As our cross-tree song we sung:
Half a hundred horrified pirates
When the world was young!_

We were anchored fast as an oak on land, and the branches clutched and
the tendrils quickened,
And bound us writhing like snakes to the spars! Ay, we hacked with our
knives at the boughs in vain,
And Bacchus laughed loud on the decks below, as ever the tough sprays
tightened and thickened,
And the blazing hours went by, and we gaped with thirst and our ribs
were racked with pain

_And the skies went round, and the sea swam round,
And we knew not what we sung:
Half a hundred lunatic pirates
When the world was young!_

Bunch upon bunch of sunlike grapes, as we writhed and struggled and raved
and strangled,
Bunch upon bunch of gold and purple daubed its bloom on our baked
black lips.
Clustering grapes, O, bigger than pumpkins, just out of reach they
bobbed and dangled
Over the vine-entangled sails of that most dumbfounded of pirate ships!

_And the sun went round, and the moon came round,
And mocked us where we hung:
Half a hundred maniac pirates
When the world was young!_

Over the waters the white moon winked its bruised old eye at our
bowery prison,
When suddenly we were aware of a light such as never a moon
or a ship's lamp throws,
And a shallop of pearl, like a Nautilus shell, came shimmering up
as by magic arisen,
With sails: of silk and a glory around it that turned the sea
to a rippling rose.

_And our heads went round, and the stars went round,
At the song that cruiser sung:
Half a hundred goggle-eyed pirates
When the world was young!_

Half a hundred rose-white Bacchanals hauled the ropes of that rosy cruiser!
Over the seas they came and laid their little white hands on the old
black barque;
And Bacchus he ups and he steps aboard: "Hi, stop!" cries Hook,
"you frantic old boozer!
Belay, below there, don't you go and leave poor pirates to
die in the dark!"

_And the moon went round, and the stars went round,
As they all pushed off and sung:
Half a hundred ribbonless Bacchanals