Dick

p. 94III. ADMIRAL GUINEA

p. 94

By W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson, Avenue Theatre, Monday, November 29, 1897.

Spoken by Miss Elizabeth Robins.

Elizabeth Robins

Once was an Age, an Age of blood and gold, An Age of shipmen scoundrelly and bold— Blackbeard and Avory, Singleton, Roberts, Kidd: An Age which seemed, the while it rolled its quid, Brave with adventure and doubloons and crime, Rum and the Ebony Trade: when, time on time, Real Pirates, right Sea-Highwaymen, could mock The carrion strung at Execution Dock; And the trim Slaver, with her raking rig, Her cloud of sails, her spars superb and trig, Held, in a villainous ecstasy of gain, Her musky course from Benin to the Main, And back again for niggers:  When, in fine, Some thought that Eden bloomed across the Line, And some, like Cowper’s Newton, lived to tell That through those parallels ran the road to Hell.

Blackbeard

Avory

Singleton

Roberts

Kidd

Execution Dock

Benin

Main

Eden

 Prev. P 26/33 next