The Saga Of Blackbeard's Ghost


A mammoth of a man and fearsome tall
with flowing ebony hair and full beard;
in both Europe and the New World all
Edward Teach was known and feared.
Becoming an outlaw of wealth and fame
two years the scurvy scourge of the sea
Teach was a pirate, Blackbeard his name
and he challenged all the powers that be.
Raiding many a royal ship and seaside town,
if any man his demands would dare to resist
into salted waves his body would drop down
tied fast with ropes at the ankles and wrists.
He was larger than life and crueler than most
prowling the Atlantic with prowess of a ghost.


In midst of battle Blackbeard would be found
with hemp woven into his long beard and hair.
He'd set it afire and the smoke gathered round
His warlike countenance where hatred flared.
Such a nuisance became he to Virginia fair
that Governor Spotswood sent sailors to find
the damn varmint at sea or in his pirate's lair
take his head and leave his corpse behind.
Lieutenant Maynard found him at Ocracoke
and swore for to sever his giant hairy head.
He would shoot, stab or even dare to choke
the dreaded pirate until he lay still and dead.
The pirate crew hid as“Adventure” was board
greatly outnumbered by the sailor hoard.


Blackbeard fought like the devil with beard afire
and dark eyes glaring red like a demon, they say.
He would give no quarter and no quarter desired
thus Blackbeard met his final fate that dreadful day.
He knew his destiny was sealed and he must die
but he would take as many as he could to hell
on the deck blood would run and men would cry.
Blackbeard knew that for him it would not end well.
About to do away with Maynard, his cutlass raised
from behind a seaman slashed Blackbeard's throat.
In the Carolinas and Virginia Maynard was praised
for ridding land and sea of such a dangerous bloke.
Five gun wounds and twenty cutlass stabs required
to take the life of the son Teachs' father had sired.


They cut off Blackbeard's head, tied it to the bow
threw his wounded, bloody body into the deep sea.
The ship sailed away, the corpse survived somehow
and swam around the ship not one time but three.
The head yelled out fierce over the frothy waves
“Edward, Oh Edward, return at once to rescue me”
but for the lawless pirate there would be no saves
and the body gradually sank beneath the briny sea.
His head was staked ashore Hampton River's mouth
as a warning to other bloody pirates full of greed.
The citizens rejoiced from the north to the south
when they heard that Blackbeard was dead indeed.
But no end to the terror of his exploits is in sight
he yet haunts the Hampton River each moonlit night.


Some spy his pirate ship on a cloudless night
silently appear from a murky, moving mist.
It chills their bones and fills them with fright;
eighteenth century sloop, the witnesses insist.
One lone figure on bow with cutlass raised high
salutes them with a “Who goes there, Mate?”
while the ghost ship disappears after passing by.
Others see a head impaled on a wooden stake
or headless body swimming round their craft
so real and frightening their breath it can take.
Some have even heard the severed head laugh,
while they gasp in fear and mortal bodies shake
So Blackbeard haunts fair Virginia to this very day
where Hampton River meets the Chesapeake Bay.