He swoll up like a poisoned pup
Our unfortunate bosun mite
His fingers were holes
In a great ball of a fist,
And he couldn't sleep easy at night.

We thought that the cook had done him up
With his cabbage, salt horse and beans
But we all ate the slop
And we weren't swoll up
So we stopped the keelhauling as mean.

We laid the unfortunate bosun on deck
And rigged him a shade for the sun
But the bloat continued
'Til his head disappeared
(His legs had gone long ago).

They dosed him with salts, with powders and pill,
With quinine, and ipcar, and jalap
But nothing would work
And he'd grown so rotund
That he rolled 'round the deck at a gallop

Then the surgeon's mate stabbed a hole in him
To let out some of the gas
It didn't work
But it kept pouring out
From his mouth, from the hole, and his...other hole.

So the ship's carpenter then took a hand
And arranged for various pipes
In a calm he became
An engine for sail
And otherwise served as a calliop'.

The unfortunate bosun is long since gone --
We sold him to some city gasworks --
But we bottled his stuff
And keep it aboard
For you never know where danger lurks.