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A capital ship for an ocean trip,
Was the Walloping Window-Blind.
No gale that blew dismayed her crew,
Nor troubled the captain's mind.
The man at the wheel was taught to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow;
And it often appeared—when the weather had cleared—
He had been in his bunk below.
The boatswain's mate was very sedate,
Yet fond of amusement too;
And he played hopscotch with the starboard watch,
While the captain tickled the crew.
And the gunner we had was apparently mad,
For he sat on the after-rail
And fired salutes with the captain's boots
In the teeth of the booming gale.
The captain sat on the commodore's hat,
And dined in a royal way,
Off toasted pigs and pickles and figs
And gunnery bread each day.
The cook was Dutch and behaved as such,
For the diet he gave the crew,
Was a number of tons of hot cross-buns,
Served up with sugar and glue.
All nautical pride we laid aside,
And we cast our vessel ashore,
On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poo-Poo smiles
And the Rumpletum-Bunders roar.
We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge,
And shot at the whistling bee:
And the cinnamon bats wore waterproof hats,
As they danced by the sounding sea.
On Rug-gub bark, from dawn till dark,
We fed, till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk; when a Chinese junk
Came in from the Torriby Zone.
She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care,
So we cheerily put to sea;
And we left the crew of the junk to chew,
The bark of the Rug-gub tree.
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