Bold mariners/How to Tell a Story

HOW TO TELL A STORY.

 

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Over port, pipe, or snuff box, there’s always some wight
To tell ye a story at club ev’ry night,
Wanting wit, at a pinch, the box helps a bad joke,
Or deficient in fire, he supplies ye with smoke.
⁠Derry down, down, down, derry down.

Since we’re told to believe only half what we hear,
Ev’ry tale we attempt should from fiction be clear,
Probability carefully keeping in view;
Example, I'll tell a short story or two.
⁠Derry down, &c.

Once a man advertis’d the metropolis round,
He’d leap off the monument on to the ground,
But when just half way down, felt some nervous attack,
Grew frighten’d, reflected, turn’d round, and jumped back
⁠Derry down, &c.

A boatswain, who ne’er had seen Punch or his wife,
To a puppet-shew went, the first time in his life;
Laugh’d and wonder’d at ev’ry odd trick and grimace
When a barrel of gunpowder blew up the place.
⁠Derry down, &c.

Spectators and puppets were here and there thrown,
When Jack on a tree who had safely been blown,
Took a quid, blew his whistle, and, not at all vext,
Cried, ‘Shiver me, what will this fellow do next?’
⁠Derry down, &c.

A bluff grenadier, under great Marshall Saxe,
Had his head cut clean off by a Lochaber axe;
But his comrade replac’d it so nice, ere it fell,
That a handkerchief tied round his neck made all well.
⁠Derry down, &c.

Now his mem’ry was short, and his neck very long,
Which he’d bow thus, and thus, when he heard a good song;
And one night, beating time to the tale I tell you,
He gave such a nod, that away his head flew.
⁠Derry down, &c.

I cou’d tell other stories, but here mean to rest,
Till what you have heard may have time to digest,
Besides ere my narrative verse I pursue,
I must find some more subjects all equally true.

⁠Derry down, &c.

 

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DOES HAUGHTY GAUL.

Does haughty Gaul invasion threat?
⁠Then let the louns beware, Sir,