An Ode to Captain Kidd

Captain Kidd was not a villain,
neither was he a knave nor a fool:
I bought a book on pirates
and found the greatest interest in a man
who wasn't a pirate at all:
except perhaps in the most entirely literal sense
(as to who his better direction
his mutinous crew was quite a fence)

He had everything:
mansions and persian rugs,
a beautiful wife, happy children,
as well as gentility, GREAT respect, and integrity in the new world:
but caught up in increasing bizzarity
he took to England
and then just to sea:
I wonder how he couldn't see

Well, it all went rather strangely
(as without me you can easily read)
but in his voyage's strange debris:
he didn't
(a resourceful man of now even greater wealth)
stealthily hide from law and authority,
but courageously put his trust
in the justice and good faith
of his fellow citizentry

Oh, what a mistake was there
(and honestly what a stain on England
and both Whigs and Tories who ruled there,)
for he was kept in barbaric Newgate
and though he succumbed
to neither political bribery, weakness nor hate,
they hung the poor man,
who in my estimation was the equal or better
of any captain in their fleet;

and then just to further damn the poor man
who'd turned himself in
rather than go on the lamb,
they tarred and mummified him and displayed him
in the harbor as a warning to all future pirates;

but what they didn't get
is that,
to those who read and TRULY think:
their only real warning was not to trust
in violent, imperial civilizations,
snobbish intellectuals and unlearned justices
(often of only cruel, missile-backed "peace") :

For a wealthy nation full of writers and papers,
universities, lawyers, and peers
could not be troubled to justly hear
the case of Captain William Kidd
(a gem of a man
who hadn't such injustice feared

Further, I don't know what to say;
I read long pages by a historian who
though he could cite sources and expound eloquently
could see neither the story nor humanity
of old William Kidd

May I never be accused of such:
whatever I might do in a passion,
May I never carefully and tactfully
before the world judge a decent man,
however many years have passed since
from his hateful struggles he be free

Life is cheap enough
(though liking mine, I hate to say it)
but respect, decency, and honour,
my friends,
are inviolate

Because of such happenings,
as both the crucifixation
and long blackening
of Captain Kidd
(no doubt)
Prof. Timothy Leary said:

"Turn on,
tune in,
and drop out."