The heart's all-when that's built as it should, sound,

and clever,

We go 'fore the wind like a fly,

But if rotten and crank, you may luff up for ever,
You'll always sail in the wind's eye:

With palaver and nonsense, I'm not to be paid off,
I'm adrift, let it blow then great guns,

A gale, a fresh breeze, or the old gemman's head off,
I takes life rough and smooth as it runs :
Content, though hard fortune, &c.

THE BLIND SAILOR.

COME, never seem to mind it,
Nor count your fate a curse,

However sad you find it,

Yet somebody is worse.

In danger some must come off short,
Yet why should we despair?
For if bold tars are Fortune's sport,
Still are they Fortune's care.

Like squibs and crackers flew up

The crew, each mother's son.

They sunk, some rigging stopp'd me short,

While twirling in the air;

And thus, if tars are Fortune's sport,

Still are they Fortune's care.

Young Peg of Portsmouth-common
Had like to have been my wife,
'Longside of such a woman
I'd led a pretty life:

A landsman, one Jem Davenport,
She convoy'd to Horn-fair;

And thus, though tars are Fortune's sport,
They still are Fortune's care.

A splinter knock'd my nose off,
My bowsprit's gone, I cries,
Yet well it kept their blows off,
Thank God 'twas not my eyes.
Chance if again their fun's that sort,
Let's hope I've had my share.
Thus, if bold tars are Fortune's sport,
They still are Fortune's care.

Scarce with these words I'd outed,
Glad for my eyes and limbs,
When a cartridge burst, and douted
Both my two precious glims.

Why, then, they're gone, cried I, in short,
Yet Fate
my life did spare;

And thus, though tars are Fortune's sport,

They still are Fortune's care.

I'm blind, and I'm a cripple,
Yet cheerful would I sing

Were my misfortunes triple,

Cause why, 'twas for my king. Besides, each Christian I exhort,

Pleased, will some pittance spare;

And thus, though tars are Fortune's sport, They still are Fortune's care.

JACK AT THE WINDLASS.

COME, all hands ahoy to the anchor,
From our friends and relations to go;
Poll blubbers and cries, devil thank her!
She'll soon take another in tow.

This breeze, like the old one, will kick us
About on the boisterous main;

And one day, if Death should not trick us,
Perhaps we may come back again.
With a will-ho, then pull away, jolly boys,
At the mercy of fortune we go;
We're in for't, then damme, what folly boys,
For to be downhearted, yo ho!

Our Boatswain takes care of the rigging,
More 'specially when he gets drunk ;
The bobstays supply him with swigging,
He the cable cuts up for old junk.
The studding-sail serves for his hammock,
With the clew-lines he bought him his call,
While ensigns and jacks in a mammock
He sold to buy trinkets for Poll.

With a will-ho, &c.

Of the Purser this here is the maxim,—
Slops, grog, and provision he sacks;
How he'd look if you was but to ax him

With the captain's clerk who 'tis goes snacks.

Oh, he'd find it another guess story,

That would bring his bare back to the cat, If his Majesty's honour and glory

Was only just told about that.
With a will-ho, &c.

Our Chaplain's both holy and godly,
And sets us for heaven agog;

Yet to my mind he looks rather oddly
When he's swearing and drinking of grog:
When he took on his knee Betty Bowser,
And talk'd of her beauty and charms,

Cried I, which is the way to heaven now, sir?
Why, you dog, cried the Chaplain, her arms.
With a will-ho, &c.

The Gunner's a devil of a bubber,
The Carfindo can't fish a mast,
The Surgeon's a lazy land-lubber,

The Master can't steer if he's ast;
The Lieutenants conceit are all wrapp'd in,
The Mates scarcely merit their flip,

Nor is there a swab, but the Captain,

Knows the stem from the stern of the ship.

With a will-ho, &c.

Now, fore and aft having abused them,
Just but for my fancy and gig,
Could I find any one that ill-used them,
Damn me, but I'd tickle his wig.
Jack never was known for a railer,
'Twas fun ev'ry word that I spoke,
And the sign of a true-hearted sailor
Is to give and to take a good joke.
With a will-ho, &c.

CONSTANCY.

THE surge hoarsely murm'riug, young Fanny's grief

mocking,

The spray rudely dashing as salt as her tears; The ship's in the offing, perpetually rocking,

Too faithful a type of her hopes and her fears. 'Twas here, she cried out, that Jack's vows were so many, Here I bitterly wept, and I bitterly weep:

Her heart-whole he swore to return to his Fanny,
Near the trembling pine that nods over the deep.

Ah! mock not my troubles, ye pitiless breakers;

Ye winds, do not thus melt my heart with alarms; He is your pride and mine, in my grief then partakers, My sailor in safety waft back to my arms.

They are deaf and ungrateful: these woes are too many; Here, here will I die, where I bitterly weep;

Some true lover shall write the sad fate of poor Fanny, On the trembling pine that hangs over the deep.

Thus, her heart sadly torn with its wild perturbation,
No friend but her sorrow, no hope but the grave;
Led on by her grief to the last desperation,

She ran to the cliff, and plung'd into the wave.
A tar saved her life-the fond tale shall please many,
Who before wept her fate, now no longer shall weep:
'Twas her Jack, who, returning, had sought out his
Fanny,

Near the trembling pine that hangs over the deep.