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| MANY a long, long year ago, | |
| Nantucket skippers had a plan | |
| Of finding out, though “lying low,” | |
| How near New York their schooners ran. | |
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| They greased the lead before it fell, | 5 |
| And then by sounding through the night, | |
| Knowing the soil that stuck so well, | |
| They always guessed their reckoning right. | |
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| A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim, | |
| Could tell, by tasting, just the spot, | 10 |
| And so below he ’d “douse the glim,”— | |
| After, of course, his “something hot.” | |
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| Snug in his berth at eight o’clock, | |
| This ancient skipper might be found; | |
| No matter how his craft would rock, | 15 |
| He slept,—for skippers’ naps are sound. | |
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| The watch on deck would now and then | |
| Run down and wake him, with the lead; | |
| He ’d up, and taste, and tell the men | |
| How many miles they went ahead. | 20 |
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| One night ’t was Jotham Marden’s watch, | |
| A curious wag,—the pedler’s son; | |
| And so he mused, (the wanton wretch!) | |
| “To-night I ’ll have a grain of fun. | |
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| “We ’re all a set of stupid fools, | 25 |
| To think the skipper knows, by tasting, | |
| What ground he ’s on; Nantucket schools | |
| Don’t teach such stuff, with all their basting!” | |
| |
| And so he took the well-greased lead, | |
| And rubbed it o’er a box of earth | 30 |
| That stood on deck,—a parsnip-bed,— | |
| And then he sought the skipper’s berth. | |
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| “Where are we now, sir? Please to taste.” | |
| The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, | |
| Opened his eyes in wondrous haste, | 35 |
| And then upon the floor he sprung! | |
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| The skipper stormed, and tore his hair, | |
| Hauled on his boots, and roared to Marden, | |
| “Nantucket’s sunk, and here we are | |
| Right over old Marm Hackett’s garden!” | 40 |
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