BALLAD. (Bold Jack the sailor, here I come)

Bold Jack the sailor, here I come, Pray how d'ye like my nib, My trowsers wide, my trampers rum, My nab, and flowing jib;

I sails the seas from end to end, And leads a joyous life, In every mess I finds a friend, In every port a wife.

I've heard them talk of constancy, Of grief, and such like fun, I've constant been to ten, cried I, But never grieved for one:

The flowing sails we tars unbend, To lead a jovial life, In every mess to find a friend, In every port a wife.

I've a spanking wife at Portsmouth gates, A pigmy at Goree, An orange-tawny up the straits, A black at St. Lucie:

Thus whatsomedever course I bend, I leads a jovial life, In every mess I find a friend, In every port a wife.

Will Gaft by Death was ta'en aback, I came to bring the news, Poll wimper'd sore, but what did Jack? Why, stood in William's shoes:

She cut, I chased, but in the end She loved me as her life, And so she got an honest friend And I a loving wife.

Thus be we sailors all the go, On fortune's sea we rub, We works, and loves, and fights the foe, And drinks the generous bub:

Storms that the mast to splinters rend, Can't shake our jovial life, In every mess we finds a friend, In every port a wife.