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Updated: October 19, 2025
The reader will now ask: 'What songs do sailors sing? We answer, that their favourite sea-songs are the most dismal, droning doggrel it is possible to conceive; and yet they relish them mightily, because they are stern matter of fact, and in most instances are descriptive of a battle, a chase, a storm, or a shipwreck subjects appealing powerfully to their sympathies.
She had no heart for the gay old sea-songs she used to sing for lullabies; so she sung hymns in her soft, motherly voice, till the blue eyes closed and the golden head lay still, looking so pretty, with the circle of bright hair above the rosy face.
Every one was in good humor; things went right; and all was done with a will. At the dog watch, all hands came on deck, and stood round the weather side of the forecastle, or sat upon the windlass, and sung sea-songs and those ballads of pirates and highwaymen which sailors delight in. Home, too, and what we should do when we got there, and when and how we should arrive, was no infrequent topic.
There he lay, singing his old sea-songs; watching the poultry from the window with a child's delight; scribbling on the slate little messages to his wife, who lay bedridden in another room; glad to have Psalms read aloud to him, if they were of a pious strain checking, with an "I don't think we need read that, my dear," any that were gloomy or bloody.
"Sir, I had little hopes on Monday last but to have supped in your cabin, but it pleased God to order it otherwise. I am thankful for it. As for those cowardly captains who deserted you, hang them up, for by God they deserve it. Yours, Du Casse." The opinion of the nautical poets of the time is well shown in one of those sea-songs which have done so much to keep up the spirits of British tars.
The cask of rum was hoisted out and lowered into the boat, the pirates tumbled in after it, and, finally, with more profanity mingled with snatches of sea-songs, which were bellowed forth at the top of their voices in the style usual with half-tipsy men, away they went for the shore, followed by the smothered imprecations of Carera and his fervent prayers that the boat might capsize and drown them all.
They gazed dreamily up into the vast sky of summer. "This is great," said the tall man. His companion grunted blissfully. Gentle hands from the sea rocked their craft and lulled them to peace. Lapping waves sang little rippling sea-songs about them. The two men issued contented groans. "Tom," said the freckled man. "What?" said the other. "This is great." They lay and thought.
Captain Kyd was his delight, and his favorite amusement was to rig up like that piratical gentleman, and roar out sanguinary sea-songs at the top of his voice. He would dance nothing but sailors' hornpipes, rolled in his gait, and was as nautical in conversation to his uncle would permit.
After that the days fled all too rapidly. Sailor Dick made a great difference in the house. It was something new to hear the fresh, hearty voice trolling out wild sea-songs, and to listen to yarn after yarn told with infinite gravity, and yet brimful of the ridiculous and impossible.
Yes, the cave has seen many a fierce, sea-tanned face and tarry pigtail, and echoed to strange oaths and wild sea-songs. Men had carved those steps in the passage thirty-two of them. In the sand of the floor, as I kicked it up with my feet, hoping rather childishly to strike the corner of the chest, I found the hilt and part of the blade of a rusty cutlass, and a chased silver shoe-buckle.
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