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 circle knew the name of "Derelict's" author, and cherished the poem. As first written, it contained three stanzas, and was entitled "A Piratical Ballad." It was set to music by Henry Waller, published by William A. Pond & Co., and sung by Eugene Cowles; this was in 1891. But the trio of ragged stanzas, as he called them, did not satisfy Allison, and during the next four or five years he amended and changed and added and polished until the result was the poem as it is known to-day. First publication of the whole work was in the Louisville Courier-Journal; reprintings have not yet ceased, nor are they likely to. At just what point an exchange-editor's scissors slipped is not known, but for a number of years the reprinted ballad was attributed to that prolific writer, "Anonymous;" then followed the Times episode and Champ Hitchcock's book reproducing the original scraps of manuscripts.

Few poems have received such careful, persistent revision; one thinks of Poe's explanation of the development of "The Raven," in "The Philosophy of Composition." Allison is not yet quite satisfied with his achievement; he believes there should be one more stanza in which Captain Flint's green parrot should be celebrated, with that immortal squawk—"Pieces of eight!" Be this as it may, from first to last there have been