| |
| THUS said the rushing raven | |
| Unto his hungry mate,— | |
| “Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven: | |
| There be corpses six or eight. | |
| Cawk! cawk! the crew and skipper | 5 |
| Are wallowing in the sea: | |
| So there ’s a savory supper | |
| For my old dame and me.” | |
| |
| “Cawk! gaffer! thou art dreaming, | |
| The shore hath wreckers bold; | 10 |
| Would rend the yelling seamen, | |
| From the clutching billows hold. | |
| Cawk! cawk! they ’d bound for booty | |
| Into the dragon’s den: | |
| And shout, for ‘death or duty,’ | 15 |
| If the prey were drowning men.” | |
| |
| Loud laughed the listening surges | |
| At the guess our grandame gave: | |
| You might call them Boanerges, | |
| From the thunder of their wave. | 20 |
| And mockery followed after | |
| The sea-bird’s jeering brood: | |
| That filled the skies with laughter, | |
| From Lundy Light to Bude. | |
| |
| “Cawk! cawk!” then said the raven, | 25 |
| “I am fourscore years and ten, | |
| Yet never in Bude Haven | |
| Did I croak for rescued men.— | |
| They will save the captain’s girdle, | |
| And shirt, if shirt there be; | 30 |
| But leave their blood to curdle | |
| For my old dame and me.” | |
| |
| So said the rushing raven | |
| Unto his hungry mate,— | |
| “Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven: | 35 |
| There be corpses six or eight. | |
| Cawk! cawk! the crew and skipper | |
| Are wallowing in the sea: | |
| O, what a savory supper | |
| For my old dame and me.” | 40 |
| |
