Billy in the Darbies

     Herman Melville wrote the unfinished novella Billy Budd  before his death in 1891. It was discovered years later by his biographer and published in 1924. Melville scholars suggest that the story was based on an attempted mutiny on the USS Somers. Melville's first cousin, Lt. Guert Ganesvoort, was an officer who served on the USS Somers.
     A poem, originally written for another book titled John Marr and Other Sailors, concludes the story of Billy Budd after the handsome sailor is sentenced to hang.


                                 
                            BILLY IN THE DARBIES



Good of the chaplain to enter Lone Bay
And down on his marrowbones here and pray
For the likes o'me, Billy Budd.--But, look:
Through the port comes the moonshine astray!
It tips the guard's cutlass and silvers this nook;
But 'twill die in the dawning of Billy's last day.
A jewel-block they'll make of me tomorrow,
Pendant pearl from the yardarm-end
Like the eardrop I gave to Bristol Molly--
O, 'tis me, not the sentence they'll suspend.
Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too,
Early in the morning, aloft from alow.
On an empty stomach now never it would do.
They'll give me a nibble--bit o'biscuit ere I go.
Sure, a messmate will reach me the last parting cup;
But, turning heads away from the hoist and the belay,
Heaven knows who will have the running of me up!
No pipe to those halyards.--But aren't it all a sham?
A blur's in my eyes; it is dreaming that I am.
A hatchet to my hawser? All adrift to go?
The drum roll to grog, and Billy never know?
But Donald he has promised to stand by the plank;
So I'll shake a friendly hand ere I sink.
But--no! It is dead that I'll be, come to think.
I remember Taff the Welshman when he sank.
And his cheek it was like the budding pink.
But me they'll lash in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair!
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.

Pipe aboard, mate, shake the doldrums, and listen to a "stamp and go" sailor's work song by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem on You Tube.
Movie clips from Billy Budd on You Tube.