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60 Music of the Waters. |
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" No more dams I'll make for fish ; Nor fetch in firing At requiring; Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish : Ban, Ban, Ca-Caliban, Has a new master : get a new man."
Towards the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign there was a grand outburst of sea songs. The pages of Charles Kingsley's characteristic novel of that period, " Westward Ho !" abound in the quaint rhymes that were then in vogue. Captain Oxenham's " Westward Ho ! with a rum-below," seems to set itself to music :—
" For O, 'tis the herrings and the good brown beef, And the cider and the cream so white; O, they are the making of the jolly Devon Lads, For to play, and eke to fight.
O, who will join jolly mariners all ?
And who will join, says he O ! To fill his pockets with the good red gold,
By sailing on the sea O !
Our bodies in the sea so deep,
Our souls in heaven to rest; Where valiant seamen one and all
Hereafter shall be blest.
O randy, dandy, dandy O,
A whet of ale and brandy O ! With a rumbelow and a ' westward ho !'
And heave my mariners all O !"
Then there is also Father Neptune's famous song, introduced in this most truly nautical book :—
" See every man the Pelican,
Which round the world did go, While her stern-post was uppermost And topmasts down below. |
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