9. The Last Buccaneer by John Masefield (1903) from the song cycle "Still the Tides"

Movement 9 from "Still the Tides" A song cycle for soprano and baritone based on 19th-century texts in twelve movements 9. The Last Buccaneer by John Masefield (1903) Oh, the times was hard, and the wages low, And the good old days was gone, When a man could stand on his own two feet And live by the strength of his arm. I’m a broken man on a battered ship, And the seas are cold and gray, But I was young once, and I knew the game In the roaring buccaneer days. We sailed where the trade-winds blew, my boys, We lived where the cannon spoke, And the sea was wide, and the law was slack, And a man was free or broke. There’s no place now for the likes of me, The world’s too tight and small; They’ve charted the seas and written the rules Till there’s nothing left at all. So here’s to the days when the sea was wild, And a man could live or die, With a clean-cutlass and a loaded gun And the whole wide world to try. 1. Morning on the Sea by Margaret Veley 2. The Sea-Change by John Davidson 3. The Sea Shell by Richard Henry Stoddard 4. The Voice of the Sea by Adelaide Anne Procter 5. The Sea at Midnight by Thomas Ashe 6. A Channel Passage by Dollie Radford 7. Sea Fever by Richard Middleton 8. The Child Who Loved the Sea by E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) 9. The Last Buccaneer by John Masefield 10. A Sea Dirge by Ernest Dowson 11. The Pilot by Joseph Skipsey 12. The North Wind by James Thompson