Tripoli
ONE to ten of you lesser men these are the odds we crave : For the ring of the sword, at the cry to board, is a song
that befits the brave. Board and burn, that ye well may learn, how American tars
atone :
Borrow ye may, but there dawns a day when we come to claim our own !
Tripolitan pirate and Turkish thief, they had harried her
there on the sunken reef,
Plundered, and robbed, and stripped her crew, for such was Tripoli law:
Lowered her barred and star-set flag, and run to her peak
their pirate rag,
For the shaming of William Bainbridge and the fame of Jussuf Bashaw!
They had towed the wreck to the haven's neck, and under the castle's guns,
And bound and jailed all them that sailed as the Philadel- phia s sons :
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