OLD SKIPPER BOB
by
Lyell Johnston & Harvey Linton (1912)


Thanks all the same I'd rather not,
I've chucked the beer and gin.
You laugh; You knew me as I was,
Not as I might 'a been.
The very same old skipper Bob;
A crock as used to be
The hardest drinkin' trawler boss;
As e'er dropped nets at sea.
Beg pardon! What! You've been abroad?
Then 'course you haven't heard
About the wreck and how we lost,
Our ketch the "Saucy Bird."
A gruesome tale! Repeat it?
Well I don't know as I should,
And yet to young 'uns such as you,
Perhaps 'tmight do ye good.
Four of us there were all told
A roughish, hardened crew,
As didn't care a tinker's cuss
For anyone we knew—
We lived afloat for wives and girls
We left to youngish tars
We fished to earn the kind o' food
We stocked in gallon jars.
Back to my yarn—Midnight it was,
From land a league or more,
Our craft adrift, Her crew chock full
O' grog all blessed four.
"Muddled?" Aye I must 'a been
But wakened with a shock!
The ketch's keel a-scrunchin' as
She scraped across the rock
Then quick as knife I realized
We'd drifted into shore—
I yelled "Ahoy!" But no reply,
Except a drunken snore.
It wasn't dark: No, black as pitch
Or Hell—or nigger's bleed,
A wind that howled—a sea that ran
Like naught I'd heard or see'd.
I hadn't heart to pray just then
But thanked God for the light
That came down from a single star
That flickered clear and bright
For just a second pointing out
The way I'd got to steer
To strike a cleft a'twixt two rocks
The danger safe to clear.
Alas! Too late! The drink had won,
I'd lost my nerve and spleen—
A giddy ride abreast a wave
Then crash and smithereens.
They tell as how four lumps o' wreck
Were found at break o' morn;
Four relics of the "Saucy Bird"
All battered, scratched and torn,
Three of 'em beyond all use
For work on land or sea,
And one alive, a miracle
Well least-ways here I be.
The parsons say that folks wot's good
Called Angels work at night,
And earn their bed and board above
By keeping stars alight.
To qualify they say "Be good,"
And now so 'elp me Bob,
The bit o' life that's left in me's
Apprenticed to That Job!