Buccaneer Days

There were a host of galleons in the wild sea days of yore
Whose spacious holds were heavy-wombed with tons of sunny ore.
Their ammirals, primal-hearted men, who cut men's throats with tears,
Wore rainbow sashes round their loins and gold rings in their ears,
And for the English buccaneers they kept a weather eye
As the gaunt and savage wolf holds watch for the eagle from the sky.

Oh brave's Sir Walter Raleigh, he who crushed the Spanish power,
The Great Queen kissed him at the Court and killed him in the Tower,
The captains and the ammirals, some strangled 'neath the foam,
And some were buried with acclaim and elegy at home.
Above their final dwelling place a visored figure lies
With pious Latin epitaph and hands crossed Christianwise.
The fleet ships, having known their times, rotted in bight and bay,
Or at the bottom of the sea—and naught remains today
Of the first great youth of England and the haughty prime of Spain
But a broken bolt, a blunderbuss, and a grinning skull or twain.
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