HARKEE, BOYS!

Harkee, Boys! I’ll tell you of the torrid, Spanish Main, Where the tarpons leap and tumble in the silvery ocean plain, Where the wheeling condors circle; where the long-nosed ant-bears sniff At the food the Jackie “caches” in the Aztec warrior’s cliff. Oh! Hurray for the deck of a galleon stout, Hurray for the life on the sea, Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an’ th’ pike; Wild rovers we will be. Harkee, Boys! I’ll tell you of the men of Morgan’s band, Of Drake and England—rascals—in the palm-tree, tropic land. I’ll tell you of bold Hawkins, how he sailed around the Horn. And the Manatees went chuck! chuck! chuck! in the sun-baked, lazy morn. Oh! Hurray for the deck of a galleon stout, Hurray for the life on the sea, Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an’ th’ pike; Wild rovers we will be. Harkee, Boys! You’re English, and you come of roving blood, Now, when you’re three years older, you must don a sea-man’s hood, You must turn your good ship westward,—you must plough towards the land Where the mule-train bells go tink! tink! tink! and the bending cocoas stand. Oh! You will be off on a galleon stout, Oh! You will be men of the sea, Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an’ th’ pike; Wild rovers you will be.