Wednesday, September 03, 2003

 
T.S. Eliot talks like a pirate

There's no way I could resist dredging up this old parody of mine after all the Corner chatter about Eliot and not least after the invocation of "Talk Like a Pirate Day." It's something of a mish-mosh, taken largely from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "Marina." Being something of a clod, I was not familiar with the latter until viewing "Butley" starring Alan Bates. Bates' character is a self-destructive
prof who hitches his star to study of T.S. Eliot. A reading of John Derbyshire's posts on the lack of popularity of that American ex-pat suggests that that alone might not have been a good career move at Queen's College. I should note (as may be painfully obvious) that I didn't quite get right the pirate sprach. Be that as it may, the Reader is invited to climb aboard LJS's longboat to reach his vessel which is something like "The Flyiing Dutchman" for a modern cruise of immoral imagination. Drinking like one has a hollow leg is not,
however, reccommended.

The Love Song of Long John Silver


Let us row then, thee an’ me,
While the evening fades to black,
Like a pris’ner stretched upon a rack,
This be no land of Honilee.

In me room the women come and go;
I leaves ‘em with a lovely glow.

I wears a rug: a follie codger;
Them widows peaks at “Jolly Roger.”

I loves to watch the lassies, curvey.
I fears to end like Edward Teach.
I keeps an eye for gendarmes on the beach.
And Sirens makes me feel all nervy.
The babes do loves to hear a feathered screech,
But I have gots a case o’ scurvy,
And do I dares to eat a peach?

There be gangs that way and gangs that press.
There be crews that come by Mickey Finn.
(Mine all be fine volunteers
Call us “Sods,” but never “queers.”)
Or say that me garb look like a dress,
Or that me arms and leg looks thin.

I have blown off arms that across a gunnel drape
Enough of tea and cakes; have a shot o’ grape!

I hates them azure whales;
harpoon is tipped with venom.
Sometimes I wears blue sails,
And then I calls ‘em “denim.”

The fates have indecision.
I wanders to and fro.
Thankgod I’ve television.
Avast! Wasteland, Ho!

I be one
Of the hollow men.
You down one
And I swallows ten.
Me leg’s sum
Is a peg o’ rum.

What sleaze, what whores, what grey socks, what thigh lands
Square on wood, flush on log,
And scent of wine, and what mere woodthrush sings for grog?
What plumage returns.
O me parrot.

Those who drink of the hair of dog, cleaning
Breath.
Those who flitter with the glory of the amphetamines, meaning
“Meth.”
Those who sit in the sty of Egyptians, meaning
Seth.
Those who Parker Medes and Persians, meating
Phrygia
I poisons an’ dissolves ‘em all in Aqua Regia.

I waves this; I have forgotten
And show me member.
I hopes the aim on shore is rotten.
Miss September
Should be friggin’ in this riggin’;
She sees from here I gots a biggin’.

What seas what shores what granite islands towards me
Timbers
What sleet, what Nor’westers, what gale-force winds flee
And gives me shivers.
Me parrot.

Shiver me timbers.

Arrr.



Or: "Hey Sailer, new in town?"

Btw., it's too bad that Steve Sailer didn't say to Rich Lowry, "Ahoy, Matey, welcome aboard!"