The Bluejacket's Lament (1893)[By Hugh Kalyptus.] Well, shiver my timbers !
If this ain't a go,
Laid up like a sheer hulk,
Now money is low
In the Government locker.
And such a craft, too !
Our gunboat Protector,
Looking neat as if new. Her decks holystoned,
And her rigging all taut,
Her spars of the trimmest,
Her ropes the best sort,
Ear hull so well painted,
Her guns just as clean
As the best man--o'--war
In the pay of the Queen. Well, shiver my tops'ls !
And such a fine craft
To be hauled on one side
like a lumberman's raft;
To lie like a hulk
In that row they call Rotten,
And her fine well--served ropes
To get flimsy as cotton. For the shoregoing lubbers
To point at and jeer.
As fast, to a stream buoy
She'll heave, swing, and sheer
With the tide, leaving barnacles
Clogging her keel,
From her stem to her starnpost,
From forefoot to heel. The ship-shape Protector,
The craft we're so proud of--
The gunboat the people
In praises spoke load of.
I love all the brasswork
I've polished so clearly--
I love all the halliards
I've pulled at so cheer'ly. I love every timber
I've payed with old oakum.
And the men whose emotions
Will pretty nigh choke 'em.
We have stuck to the vessel
In rough and fine weather,
And fought her until
Not a plank held together. And now she's to lie
like a log in the water,
Because them dashed Rooshens
Ain't anxious for slaughter.
And now all the shore going lubbers
Will mock her--
I wish they was all
In Dave Jones's sea locker. Notes From the Adelaide Newspaper The Evening Journal 1 Jul 1893 p. 5.