A Ballad of John Silver
We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.
We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;It’s a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.
Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people’s brains,She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.
O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken-coop;Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to doThan to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.
O! the fiddle on the fo’c’s’le, and the slapping naked soles,And the genial ‘Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!’With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.
Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,All have since been put a stop-to by the naughty Board of Trade;The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest.
Words in this poem
- lissome a.
- Limber; supple; flexible; lithe; lithesome. [For lithesome.]
- roger n.
- A black flag with white skull and crossbones, formerly used by pirates; -- called also Jolly Roger.
- grimly a.
- Grim; hideous; stern.
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
- cutlass n.
- A short, heavy, curving sword, used in the navy. See Curtal ax. [F. coutelas (cf. It. coltellaccio), augm. fr. L. cuttellus a smallknife, dim. of culter knife. See Colter, and cf. Curtal ax.]
- goodly a.
- Pleasant; agreeable; desirable. [OE. godlich, AS. g. See Good, and Like.]
- aboard adv.
- On board; into or within a ship or boat; hence, into or within a railway car. [Pref. a- on, in + board.]
- taffrail n.
- The upper part of a ship's stern, which is flat like a table on the top, and sometimes ornamented with carved work; the rail around a ship's stern. [D. tafereel a panel, picture, fr. tafel table, fr. L. tabula. See Table.]
- poop v. i.
- To make a noise; to pop; also, to break wind. [Cf. D. poepen. See Pop.]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- slapping a.
- Very large; monstrous; big.
- genial a.
- Contributing to, or concerned in, propagation or production; generative; procreative; productive. [L. genialis: cf. OF. genial. See Genius.]
- naughty a.
- Having little or nothing.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Ballad of John Silver is in the public domain. This text is taken from Salt-Water Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #52761; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Masefield, A Ballad of John Silver, in Salt-Water Ballads (1902), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #52761, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masefield-salt-water/a-ballad-of-john-silver.html, id L12672.
Form and metre
A Ballad of John Silver is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 14.9 syllables.
See other poems in iambic heptameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB hullA · skullA · foreB · yoreB
- 2 AABB shipA · hipA · deploredB · aboardB
- 3 AABB chainsA · brainsA · sankB · plankB
- 4 AABB poopA · coopA · doB · toB
- 5 AABB solesA · rollsA · overheadB · redB
- 6 AABB playedA · tradeA · restB · blestB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull, | 15 | ··/˘··/˘······· |
| And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull; | 15 | ····/˘/˘······· |
| We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore, | 15 | ····/˘/˘/˘/˘··· |
| And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore. | 15 | ····/˘/˘··/˘··· |
| We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship, | 15 | ·····˘/˘···˘/˘· |
| We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip; | 15 | ······/˘··/˘··· |
| It’s a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored, | 15 | ·············˘/ |
| But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard. | 15 | ····/˘/˘·····˘/ |
| Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains, | 15 | ······/˘··/˘··· |
| And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people’s brains, | 15 | ······/˘··/˘/˘· |
| She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank, | 15 | ··/˘··/˘··/˘··· |
| And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank. | 15 | ···˘/····/˘˘··· |
| O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop) | 14 | ·····/˘··/˘··· |
| We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken-coop; | 15 | ····/˘·˘/·/˘/˘· |
| Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do | 15 | ·/˘·˘··˘/·/˘··· |
| Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to. | 15 | ····/˘/˘······· |
| O! the fiddle on the fo’c’s’le, and the slapping naked soles, | 15 | ··/˘······/˘/˘· |
| And the genial ‘Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!’ | 15 | ··/˘··/˘······· |
| With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead, | 15 | ··/˘········/˘/ |
| And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red. | 15 | ······/˘····/˘· |
| Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played, | 15 | ····/˘/˘··/˘··· |
| All have since been put a stop-to by the naughty Board of Trade; | 15 | ··········/˘··· |
| The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest, | 14 | ·/˘··/˘···˘/·· |
| A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest. | 14 | ·/˘··/···/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.