The Captain again the letter hath read
Which the bum-boat woman brought out to Spithead—­
Still, since the good ship sail’d away,
He reads that letter three times a-day;
Yet the writing is broad and fair to see
As a Skipper may read in his degree,
And the seal is as black, and as broad, and as flat,
As his own cockade in his own cock’d hat: 
He reads, and he says, as he walks to and fro,
“Curse the old woman—­she bothers me so!”

He pauses now, for the topmen hail—­
“On the larboard quarter a sail! a sail!”
That grim old Captain he turns him quick,
And bawls through his trumpet for Hairy-faced Dick. 
“The breeze is blowing—­huzza! huzza! 
The breeze is blowing—­away! away! 
The breeze is blowing—­a race! a race! 
The breeze is blowing—­we near the chase! 
Blood will flow, and bullets will fly,—­
Oh, where will be then young Hamilton Tighe?”

—­“On the foeman’s deck, where a man should be,
With his sword in his hand, and his foe at his knee. 
Cockswain, or boatswain, or reefer may try,
But the first man on board will be Hamilton Tighe!”

* * * * *

Hairy-faced Dick hath a swarthy hue,
Between a gingerbread-nut and a Jew,
And his pigtail is long, and bushy, and thick,
Like a pump-handle stuck on the end of a stick. 
Hairy-faced Dick understands his trade;
He stand by the breech of a long carronade,
The linstock glows in his bony hand,
Waiting that grim old Skipper’s command.

“The bullets are flying—­huzza! huzza! 
The bullets are flying—­away! away!”—­
The brawny boarders mount by the chains,
And are over their buckles in blood and in brains. 
On the foeman’s deck, where a man should be,
  Young Hamilton Tighe waves his cutlass high,
And Capitaine Crapaud bends low at his knee.

Hairy-faced Dick, linstock in hand,
Is waiting that grim-looking Skipper’s command:—­
  A wink comes sly from that sinister eye—­
Hairy-faced Dick at once lets fly,
And knocks off the head of young Hamilton Tighe!

There’s a lady sits lonely in bower and hall,
Her pages and handmaidens come at her call: 
“Now look ye, my handmaidens, haste now and see
How he sits there and glow’rs with his head on his knee! 
The maidens smile, and, her thought to destroy,
They bring her a little, pale, mealy-faced boy;
  And the mealy-faced boy says, “Mother, dear,
Now Hamilton’s dead, I’ve ten thousand a-year!”

The lady has donned her mantle and hood,
She is bound for shrift at St. Mary’s Rood:—­
“Oh! the taper shall burn, and the bell shall toll,
And the mass shall be said for my step-son’s soul,
And the tablet fair shall be hung on high,
Orate pro anima Hamilton Tighe!”

Her coach and four Draws up to the door
With her groom, and her footman, and a half score more
The lady steps into her coach alone,
And they hear her sigh, and they hear her groan;
They close the door, and they turn the pin,
But there’s One rides with her that never stept in!