Page:Bold mariners.pdf/4



port, pipe, or snuff box, there’s always some wight

To tell ye a story at club ev’ry night,

Wanting wit, at a pinch, the box helps a bad joke,

Or deficient in fire, he supplies ye with smoke.

Derry down, down, down, derry down.

Since we’re told to believe only half what we hear,

Ev’ry tale we attempt should from fiction be clear,

Probability carefully keeping in view;

Example, I'll tell a short story or two.

Derry down, &c.

Once a man advertis’d the metropolis round,

He’d leap off the monument on to the ground,

But when just half way down, felt some nervous attack,

Grew frighten’d, reflected, turn’d round, and jumped back

Derry down, &c.

A boatswain, who ne’er had seen Punch or his wife,

To a puppet-shew went, the first time in his life;

Laugh’d and wonder’d at ev’ry odd trick and grimace

When a barrel of gunpowder blew up the place.

Derry down, &c.