Natalie Merchant
The Walloping Window Blind
A capital ship for an ocean trip
Was The Walloping Window Blind
No gale that blew dismayed her crew
Or troubled the captain’s mind
The man at the wheel was taught to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow
But it oft appeared, when the weather had cleared
That he'd been in his bunk below
The boatswain's mate was very sedate
Yet fond of amusement too
He played hop-scotch with the starboard watch
While the captain tickled the crew
And the gunner we had was apparently mad
He stood on a [?] tail
And fired salutes with the captain's boots
In the teeth of the booming gale
The captain sat in a commodore's hat
And dined in a royal way
On toasted pigs and pickles and figs
And gunnery bread each day
But the rest of us ate from an odious plate
For the food that was given the crew
A number of tons of hot-cross buns
Chopped up with sugar and glue
And we all fell ill as mariners will
On a diet that's cheap and rude
The deck shook when we dipped the cook
In a tub of his gluesome food
Then nautical pride we laid aside
And cast the vessel ashore
On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smiles
And the Anagazanders roar
Composed of sand was a favored land
And trimmed in cinnamon straws
Pink and blue was the pleasing hue
Of the Tickletoeteaser’s claws
We sat on the edge of the sandy ledge
And shot at the whistling bee
And the Binnacle-bats wore waterproof hats
As they danced in the sounding sea
On rub-a-gub bark, from dawn to dark
We fed till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk, when a Chinese junk
Came by from the torriby zone
She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care
And we cheerily put to sea
And we left that crew of the junk to chew
The bark of the rub-a-gub tree