Buccaneers

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Title:     Buccaneers
Author: Walt Mason [More Titles by Mason]

(The Pirate of 1612)

Oh, once again my merry men and I are on the water with prospects fair, with hearts to dare, and souls athirst for slaughter! Before the breeze we scour the seas, our vessel low and raking, and men who find our ship behind in mortal fear are quaking. We love the fight and our delight grows as the strife increases; we slash and slay and hew our way to win the golden pieces. To hear, to feel the clang of steel! Ah, that, my men, is rapture! Our hearts are stern, we sink, we burn, we kill the men we capture! Why mercy show when well we know that when our course is ended, we all must die--they'll hang us high, unshaven, undefended! Ah, wolves are we that roam the sea, and rend with savage fury; as soft our mind, our hearts as kind will be judge and jury! To rob and slay we go our way, our vessel low and raking; and men who hail our ebon sail may well be chilled and quaking!

(The Pirate of 1912)

My heart is light and glad tonight, and life seems good and merry; my coffer groans with golden bones I've pulled from the unwary. Ah, raiment fine and gems are mine, and costly bibs and tuckers; I got my rocks for mining stocks--I worked the jays and suckers. What though my game is going lame--a jolt the courts just gave me--my lawyers gay will find a way to beat the law and save me. I'll just lie low a year or so until the row blows over, then I'll come back to my old shack and be again in clover! I've fifty ways to work the jays and there's a fortune in it! The sucker crop will never stop, for one is born each minute.

[The end]
Walt Mason's poem: Buccaneers

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