我老了，亲爱的，岁月、工作和悲伤使我干瘪了，我的眼睛不见了，我的牙齿也被时间这个小偷拔掉了!因为我见过可怕的景象，经历过巨大的危险——我现在快七十岁了，我的工作也差不多完成了!啊!我年轻的时候，我和男人打过交道!我说的是十年前的事——那时我还不到六十岁。我的脸颊醇厚柔软，我的眼睛又大又甜。我是一名小船上的女工，我忠实地为船上服务，用苹果、蛋糕、家禽、啤酒和半便士的蘸酱，为军官们晚上吃饭的大食堂提供牛肉，为嬉戏的海军军官们提供新鲜的薄荷糖。在所有停泊在朴茨茅斯湾的善良的指挥官中，到目前为止，最可爱的是善良的贝拉耶中尉。”贝拉耶中尉指挥“热十字包”号炮艇，这艘舰长7英尺30英尺，带着一门枪。当人们询问这艘船的大小时，贝拉耶中尉回答说:“哦，我的船，我的船是171号中的第一艘!”它指的是它的吨位，但人们以为它指的是它的大炮。 Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below, "Come down, Little Buttercup, come" (for he loved to call me so), And he'd tell of the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part, And so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S heart! But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he, "I'm ordered to sail with the HOT CROSS BUN to the German Sea." And the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day, For every Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE. And I went to a back back street, with plenty of cheap cheap shops, And I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops, And I went to LIEUTENANT BELAYE (and he never suspected ME!) And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea. We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one, - Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the HOT CROSS BUN, I'm sorry to say that I've heard that sailors sometimes swear, But I never yet heard a BUN say anything wrong, I declare. When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a "Messmate, ho! What cheer?" But here, on the HOT CROSS BUN, it was "How do you do, my dear?" When Jack Tars growl, I believe they growl with a big big D- But the strongest oath of the HOT CROSS BUNS was a mild "Dear me!" Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them slick: Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick; And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair, They spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair. They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run, And they screamed when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun. And as he was proud of his gun - such pride is hardly wrong - The Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long. They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said That BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red - That JOE looked quite his age - or somebody might declare That BARNACLE'S long pig-tail was never his own own hair. BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him, "But, then," he would say, "there is little to do on a gunboat trim I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too - And it IS such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew." I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped! Reef topsails! Make all taut! There's dirty weather ahead! (I do not mean that tempests threatened the HOT CROSS BUN: In THAT case, I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done!) After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one day, And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE, And after a long long week had passed (and it seemed like a life), LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife! He up, and he says, says he, "O crew of the HOT CROSS BUN, Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!" And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits, And all fell down in so many separate fainting-fits. And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me, Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array, To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE. It's strange to think that I should ever have loved young men, But I'm speaking of ten years past - I was barely sixty then, And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow! And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their lustre now!