=== Vicar of Bray ===

In good King Charles's golden days,
When loyalty no harm meant,
A zealous High-Churchman I was
And so I gained preferment;
To teach my flock I ne'er did miss-
Kings are by god appointed,
And damned are those who dare resist,
Or touch the Lord's annointed.
   And this be law, I will maintain,
   Until my dying day, Sir,
   That whatsoever king shall reign,
   Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!
When royal James obtained the crown,
And Popery came in fashion,
The penal laws I hooted down,
And read the declaration:
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my Constitution
And I had been a Jesuit-
But for the Revolution.

When gracious Anne became our queen,
The Church of England's glory,
Another face of things was seen-
And I became a Tory:
Occasional Conformists base,
I scorned their moderation,
And thought the Church in danger was
>From such prevarication.

When George in pudding-time came o'er,
And moderate men looked big, Sir,
I turned the cat-in-pan once more-
And so became a Whig, Sir:
And this preferment I procured,
>From our new faith's defender,
And almost every day abjured
The Pope and the Pretender.

The illustrious House of Hanover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I lustily will swear-
While they can keep possession:
For in my faith and loyalty
I never once will falter,
And George my lawful king shall be-
Except the times should alter.

======= A Capital Ship ========

A capital ship for an ocean trip
Was the "Walloping Window-Blind."
No wind that blew dismayed her crew,
Or troubled the captain's mind.
The man at the wheel was made to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow-ow-ow,
Thought it often appeared when the gale had cleared
That he'd been in his bunk below.
   So blow ye winds heigh-ho,
   A-roving I will go;
   I'll stay no more on England's shore,
   So let the music play-ay-ay;
   I'm off for the morning train,
   I'll cross the raging main,
   I'm off for my love with a boxing glove
   Ten thousand miles away.
The bo'son's mate was very sedate,
Yet fond of amusement, too.
He played hop-scotch with the starboard watch,
While the captain tickled the crew.
The gunner we had was apparently mad,
For he sat on the after rail,
And fired salutes with the captain's boots
In the teeth of a booming gale.

The captain sat on the commodore's hat,
And dined in a royal way
Off pickles and figs and little roast pigs,
And gunnery bread each day.
The cook was Dutch and behaved as such,
For the diet he served the crew,
Was a couple of tons of hot-cross buns
Served up with sugar and glue.

Then we all fell as mariners will
On a diet that's rough and crude;
And we shivered and shook as we dipped the cook
In a tub of his gluesome food.
All nautical pride we cast aside,
And we ran the vessel ashore
On the Gulliby Isles, where the poopoo smiles,
And the rubbily ubdugs roar.

Composed of sand was that favored land,
And trimmed with cinnamon straws,
And pink and blue was the pleasing hue
Of the tickle-toe-teaser's claws.
We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge,
And shot at the whistling bee,
While the ring-tailed bats wore waterproof hats
As the dipped in the shining sea.

On rugbug bark from dawn till dark
We dined till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk, when a Chinese junk
Came up from the Torrible Zone.
She was chubby and square, but we didn't much care,
So we cheerily put to sea,
And we left all the crew of the junk to chew
On the bark of the rugbug tree.