A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. There's some is born with their straight legs by natur And some is born with bow-legs from the firstAnd some that should have grow'd a good deal straighter, But they were badly nurs'd, And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs I've got myself a sort of bow to larboard, And this is what it was that warp'd my legs. "Twas all along of Poll, as I may say, When I gets under weigh, Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship, Get under sail, The only one there was to make the trip. Well I gives chase, But as she run Two knots to one, There warn't no use in keeping on the race! Well-casting round about, what next to try on, I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, And fetches up before the coach-horse stable : I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable. Under the she-mare's keel, And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn! My eyes! how she did pitch! And wouldn't keep her own to go in no line, And wasn't she trimendous slack in stays! Well-I suppose We hadn't run a knot-or much beyond (What will you have on it?)—but off she goes, Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond! There I am!--all a-back! So I looks forward for her bridle-gears, A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. 209 To heave her head round on the t'other tack; The leather parts, And goes away right over by the ears! What could a fellow do, Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes, But trim myself upright for bringing-to, And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows, In rig all snug and clever, Just while his craft was taking in her water? The chase had gain'd a mile A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking: Now, all the while Her body didn't take of course to shrinking. Says I, she's letting out her reefs, I'm think ing— And so she swell'd, and swell'd, And yet the tackle held, Till both my legs began to bend like winkin. And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder! Well, there-off Hartford Ness, We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together, If I get on another, I'll be blow'd!— And that's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd! THE BACHELOR'S DREAM. My pipe is lit, my grog is mix'd, She look'd so fair, she sang so well, What loving tête-à-têtes to come! |