Lyr Add: The Ballad of the Ivanhoe

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BALLAD OF THE IVANHOE (Bill Adams)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 05:11 PM

Lyr. Add: THE BALLAD OF THE IVANHOE
Bill Adams

"What is she making?" asked the mate;
"She's making her sixteen, sir."
"One hundred days to the Golden Gate,"
Said the hard-case mate,-
The Ivanhoe was running for the open sea.

"What's she making?" asked the skipper;
"Still logging her sixteen, sir."
"Two more nights and she'll lose the dipper,"
Muttered the skipper,-
And the Ivanhoe was whooping it southerly.

"What's she makin', bullies?" asked Chips;
"Sixteen knots on her course, lad."
"Then she'll whip them lubberly London ships,"
Grinned Carpenter Chips.-
And then the Pampero caught her under full sail.

"She's lost one whole storm suit," said Sails,
They fetched new from the locker,
And dressed her from boom to her spanker brails
For the Cape Horn gales,-
And then old Ivanhoe went southing toward the Horn.

"Seen no sun in a month," growled Bose,
"A full Horn gale's a-blowin',
"An' all of yer yards is jammed up close,
My Gawd! - 'ow it snows!"
Old Ivanhoe had been a full four weeks off Stiff.

"Where's the skipper? the froze mate said,
"I haven't seen him of late."
"He's overboard, and he's drowned and dead,"
And shaking his head,
"You'll have to sail her to 'Frisco," said the second.

"Wot was it crashed in the black night?"
"Her topmasts carried away!"
"My word, but ain't it blowin' a fright?
Oh, Gawd, fer th' light!"
And that was when she's been six weeks off old Cape Stiff.

Six men lay dead. Calm came in spells.
The second mate went crazy;
Old Ivanhoe lifted to the swells
Changing both her bells.-
Her wreckage trailed astern amidst the Cape Horn bergs.

"What is she making?" asked the mate.
"Just creeping at two knots, sir."
"Three hundred days to the Golden Gate,"
Said her hard-case mate,-
When a fair wind blew after eight weeks off Cape Stiff.

"Will we sail into Vallapo
For refittin'?" asked the hands.
"No sons! Not by a hell of a show!
"We will take her so,
Just as she is, to 'Frisco," said her hard-case mate.

"A steamer's comin' through the swell,
Offerin us assistance."
"Signal the lubber to go to hell!
Signal him, 'All's well.'"
Old Ivanhoe had been two hundred days at sea.

"What's come of the old Ivanhoe?"
Asked one of the clerks at Lloyd's,
"Perished, maybe, in a Cape Horn blow,
There's none to know!"
And then they slowly tolled the bell for her at Lloyd's.

Jury rigged, with all her freight,
And the red rust on her sides,
Came Ivanhoe, a twelvemonth late,
With her hard-case mate,
And half her crew, slow stealing through the Golden Gate.

Bill Adams. I don't know the original place of publication. Reproduced pp. 241-244 in "Stag Lines," 1940, Ed. Maxwell Droke, Phoenix Press.