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.