(A Gentleman
Pirate)
Major Bonnet, can you ever explain
So we will understand
Why you died in such disdain
When your life could have been so grande
A lettered gentleman from Barbados
Residing on a fine plantation
Yet, you preferred the life of pyrates woes
And left home without hesitation
Sailing away on a purchased ship
Mysteriously named “Revenge”
Seventy seamen were paid from your hip
Ten guns readied for your pilfering binge
Edward Teach, old Blackbeard himself
Taught you a lesson or two
Capturing your ship and crew with stealth
While filling you with his brew
Later, a govenor’s pardon meant little
to you
As you pyrated with assumed name
Plundering Charleston like it was your ‘due’
Fleeing on the renamed “Royal James”
But, lo… the Cape Fear was not sound
As Col. William Rhett’s battle was fought
Your mighty ship ran aground
Five hours swashbuckling for naught
Back to Charleston, this time in shame
You sat in a dark dungeon stall
Because you escaped, now who was to blame
When Judge Trot gave no clemency at all?
Wigless you were forced to parade
The streets of the holy city
In penance for your escapades
Ridiculed and never pitied
On a 1718 November morn
Wearing a noose, you met demise
While onlookers were filled with scorn
No evidence of tears in their eyes
You clutched a nosegay in your hand
A symbol of repentance it’s said
Regardless of your posthumous stand
You were most assuredly still dead
With thirty odd members of your crew
You hung ‘til your bones were bleached
Then high tide carried the remains of you
To a watery grave none could reach
Your mysteries we will never know
For no part of you remains
We’re just certain we don’t want to go
The way of pyrates aboard the “Royal James”
Rosalene
H. Abrams
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