Read Ebook: The Dead Men's Song Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its Author Young Ewing Allison by Hitchcock Champion Ingraham

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Ebook has 585 lines and 69760 words, and 12 pages

OF THIS LITTLE VOLUME TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES HAVE BEEN MADE

YOUNG EWING ALLISON

"The man who wrote such a poem should not be unknelled, unhonored and unsung."

THE DEAD MEN'S SONG:

YOUNG EWING ALLISON

TOGETHER WITH A BROWSE THROUGH OTHER GEMS OF HIS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF OLDER DAYS

HIS FRIEND AND ASSOCIATE

CHAMPION INGRAHAM HITCHCOCK

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

COPYRIGHT BY CHAMPION INGRAHAM HITCHCOCK

IN THESE PAGES

A WORD SAID BEFOREHAND

Explaining How a Certain "Chap" Lost His Temper and Found It Again Very Quickly.

A Reminiscence of Stevenson's "Treasure Island" Based On the Quatrain of Captain Billy Bones.

PICTURING THE INDIVIDUAL

With Some Observations About A Man Whom I Have the Honor to Call Friend.

MAN AND NEWSPAPER MAN

A Peep Into Personal Records of the Past With Some Comments of a Current Nature.

JUST BROWSING AROUND

Excursions Into the "Higher Altitudes" With Something About the Books Up There.

IN THE OPERATIC FIELD

Being a Look Behind the Scenes With Some Glimpses of a Pursuing Jinx.

BALLAD OF DEAD MEN

The Same Being Mostly About Able Pirates And the Very Able Descendant of a Pirate.

IF THERE IS CONTROVERSY!

Just a Few Bits From the Olden Days With Some Comment On a Certain Critic.

SOME CLIPPINGS--AND A LETTER

Which Tells How One Who Did Not Know Set Himself Up As a "Chanty" Authority.

YO-HO-HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM

A "Sitting" for Which Photograph Forms A Story Known Only to This Writer.

"A TEMPTING BAUBLE"

Said "Bauble" Being a Check Which Allison Returned in a Frame With a Few Comments of His Own.

YOUNG E. ALLISON

THE INFALLIBLE

BOOK OF "THE OGALLALLAS"

FROM THE OLD "PROMPT" BOOK

Page From "The Mouse and the Garter," Showing Allison's Characteristic Penciled Notations.

"A PIRATICAL BALLAD"

Facsimile in Miniature of the First Printed Verses of "Derelict" Published and Copyrighted by William A. Pond & Co., 1891.

Together With Certain Letters and Memoranda, Proofs, Mss., etc., About "Fifteen Dead Men," in Facsimile of Young E. Allison's Characteristic Handwriting, which are to be Found in a "Pocket" in the Inside Back Cover of This Volume.

A WORD SAID BEFOREHAND

Louisville, November, 1914.

DERELICT

A Reminiscence of "Treasure Island"

YOUNG E. ALLISON

Fifteen men of a whole ship's list-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Dead and bedamned, and the rest gone whist!-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! The skipper lay with his nob in gore Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore-- And the scullion he was stabbed times four. And there they lay, And the soggy skies Dripped all day long In up-staring eyes-- At murk sunset and at foul sunrise-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Ten of the crew had the Murder mark-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! 'Twas a cutlass swipe, or an ounce of lead, Or a yawing hole in a battered head-- And the scuppers glut with a rotting red. And there they lay-- Aye, damn my eyes!-- All lookouts clapped On paradise-- All souls bound just contrariwise-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of 'em good and true-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Every man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! There was chest on chest full of Spanish gold, With a ton of plate in the middle hold, And the cabins riot of stuff untold. And they lay there That had took the plum, With sightless glare And their lips struck dumb, While we shared all by the rule of thumb-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight, With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight, And we heaved 'em over and out of sight-- With a yo-heave-ho! And a fare-you-well! And a sullen plunge In the sullen swell Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

One of my earliest recollections of my friend and business associate for very many, very short and very happy years, is a conversation in the old Chicago Press Club rooms on South Clark Street, near Madison, in the early 90's, about three o'clock one morning, when the time for confidences arrives--if ever it does. What his especial business in Chicago was at that particular moment makes no particular difference. He might have been rehearsing "The Ogallallas," or mayhap he was on duty as Kentucky commissioner to the World's Fair. As a matter of mere fact he was there and we had spent an evening and part of a morning together and were bent on extending the session to daybreak. Sunrise on Madison Street always was a wonderful sight. The dingy buildings on that busy old thoroughfare, awakening to day-life, then appeared as newly painted in the mellow of the early morning.

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