Classic Poem

Ye sailors bold both great and small
That navigate the ocean,
Who love a lass that's fair and tall,
Come hearken to my motion;
You must have heard of Milford Haven,
All harbours it surpasses,
I know no port this side of heaven
So famed for handsome lasses.

In Milford on your larboard hand
We found a town called Hakin,
The snuggest place in all the land
For lads inclined to raking;
There all the girls were cleanly dressed,
As witty as they are pretty,
But one exceeded all the rest,
And this was charming Betty.

A fisherman her father was,
Her mother a fishwoman,
And she herself a fishing lass
Perhaps possessed by no man;
She'd bait her hook with lug or crab,
No fisherman so nimble,
And at her oar she was a dab,
But never at her thimble.

Assist me, all the watery tribe,
I find my wit a-flagging
As I endeavour to describe
This precious pearl of Hakin;
Ye mermaids tune my merry song,
And Neptune bless my darling,
Your smoking altars shall ere long
Be spread with sole and sparling.

Her fishing dress was clean and neat,
It set me all a-quaking,
I loved her and could almost eat
This maiden ray of Hakin;
If ere you saw a cuttle fish,
Her breasts are more inviting,
Like shaking blubbers in a dish,
And tender as a whiting.

Her cheeks are as a mackerel plump,
No mouth of mullet moister,
Her lips of tench would make you jump,
They open like an oyster;
Her chin as smooth as river trout,
Her hair as rockfish yellow,
God's Sounds! I view her round about
But never saw her fellow.

When hungry people write for bread,
Whom they call poetasters,
They talk of fires in topmast head,
Of Pollax and of Castor's;
Her eyes afford a brighter mark
Than all those flashy meteors,
Like Milford Lights even in the dark
Revealing all her features.

Whene'er a smile sits on her lip
I'm brisk as bottled cider,
I quite renounce and leave my ship
And never can abide her;
Whene'er she speaks, so sweet her tone
I leap like spawning salmon,
And when she sings I'm all her own,
I serve no Jove nor Mammon.

But if she frowns I'm gone to pot,
As dead as pickled herring,
The muscles of my heart must rot
And split from clew to earring;
Then in my hammock sink me deep
Within the sight of Hakin,
Then sure she'll melancholy weep
As turtles at their taking.

Let doctors kill, let merchants cheat,
Let courtiers cog and flatter,
Let gluttons feed on costly meat,
Let me have Betty's platter;
To mess with her I'd spend my days
On pilchard and on poor-John,
Let richer folks have if they please
Their turbot and their sturgeon.

Ye sailors bold both great and small
That navigate the ocean,
Who love a lass that's fair and tall,
Come hearken to my motion;
You must have heard of Milford Haven,
All harbours it surpasses,
I know no port this side of heaven
So famed for handsome lasses.

In Milford on your larboard hand
We found a town called Hakin,
The snuggest place in all the land
For lads inclined to raking;
There all the girls were cleanly dressed,
As witty as they are pretty,
But one exceeded all the rest,
And this was charming Betty.

A fisherman her father was,
Her mother a fishwoman,
And she herself a fishing lass
Perhaps possessed by no man;
She'd bait her hook with lug or crab,
No fisherman so nimble,
And at her oar she was a dab,
But never at her thimble.

Assist me, all the watery tribe,
I find my wit a-flagging
As I endeavour to describe
This precious pearl of Hakin;
Ye mermaids tune my merry song,
And Neptune bless my darling,
Your smoking altars shall ere long
Be spread with sole and sparling.

Her fishing dress was clean and neat,
It set me all a-quaking,
I loved her and could almost eat
This maiden ray of Hakin;
If ere you saw a cuttle fish,
Her breasts are more inviting,
Like shaking blubbers in a dish,
And tender as a whiting.

Her cheeks are as a mackerel plump,
No mouth of mullet moister,
Her lips of tench would make you jump,
They open like an oyster;
Her chin as smooth as river trout,
Her hair as rockfish yellow,
God's Sounds! I view her round about
But never saw her fellow.

When hungry people write for bread,
Whom they call poetasters,
They talk of fires in topmast head,
Of Pollax and of Castor's;
Her eyes afford a brighter mark
Than all those flashy meteors,
Like Milford Lights even in the dark
Revealing all her features.

Whene'er a smile sits on her lip
I'm brisk as bottled cider,
I quite renounce and leave my ship
And never can abide her;
Whene'er she speaks, so sweet her tone
I leap like spawning salmon,
And when she sings I'm all her own,
I serve no Jove nor Mammon.

But if she frowns I'm gone to pot,
As dead as pickled herring,
The muscles of my heart must rot
And split from clew to earring;
Then in my hammock sink me deep
Within the sight of Hakin,
Then sure she'll melancholy weep
As turtles at their taking.

Let doctors kill, let merchants cheat,
Let courtiers cog and flatter,
Let gluttons feed on costly meat,
Let me have Betty's platter;
To mess with her I'd spend my days
On pilchard and on poor-John,
Let richer folks have if they please
Their turbot and their sturgeon.