I'm finally getting to record this one on a forthcoming CD and I've done some more changes. I now introduce the song with the chorus and add a reprise of the clipper ship names at the end (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords):

Adapted by Charlie Ipcar, 8/9/08
Tune: Charlie Ipcar
Key: D (2/C)

By the Old Pagoda Anchorage [1926]-2


Chorus:

Am-----F-------------------C
Racing home for London River!
------------F-----------------C
Crack her on for London River!
--------F----------------C----------------Am--------------C
Carry on for London River with her chests of China tea –
------------F----------------Am
With her chests of China tea!


Am---C--------------------------------F-----------------C
By the old Pagoda Anchorage they lay full fifteen strong,
-------F-------------------C------------Am-----------------C
Their spars were like a forest, their names were like a song –
F------------------C
Fiery Cross and Falcon there,
F---------------------C
Lay with Spindrift, doomed and fair,
F------------------C
Robin Hood and Hallowe'en –
Am---------------------------C
With Le-ander there were seen –
F-------------C----------F--------------------C
Ariel and Ti-tania, and proud Thermopy-lae,
--------F-------------C--------------------Am------------------C
By the old Pagoda Anchorage, when clippers sailed the sea,
--------F--------------------Am
When clippers sailed the sea: (CHO)


By the old Pagoda Anchorage, so many years ago,
What a sight it was to see them with their decks like new laid snow:
Their brasses winking bright,
Their gleaming gold and white,
Their tall and slender spars
Humming shanties to the stars –
Those ships so brave and beautiful that never more shall be,
By the old Pagoda Anchorage, when clippers sailed the sea,
When clippers sailed the sea: (CHO)


By the old Pagoda Anchorage the clippers lie no more,
There's silence on the river, there's silence on the shore –
Yet the silted channels seem
Still to murmur as in dream
Of the ships so fair and fleet,
By those shores that used to meet –
By the old Pagoda Anchorage, when clippers sailed the sea,
Logging fourteen on a bowline, ay, an' seventeen running free,
An' seventeen running free. (CHO)

Reprise:

F------------------C
Fiery Cross and Falcon there,
F---------------------C
Lay with Spindrift, doomed and fair,
F------------------C
Robin Hood and Hallowe'en –
Am---------------------------C
With Le-ander there were seen –
F-------------C----------F--------------------C
Ariel and Ti-tania, and proud Thermopy-lae,
--------F-------------C--------------------Am------------------C
By the old Pagoda Anchorage, when clippers sailed the sea,
--------F--------------------Am
When clippers sailed the sea!


Notes

From Full Sail: More Sea Songs and Ballads, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Houghton Mifflin Co., NY, © 1926, pp. 84-87.

Other, less complete, versions of this poem may be found in an earlier edition of Punch Magazine and in Smith's own The Return of the Cutty Sark published in 1924.

The Pagoda Anchorage at Mawei was twenty-five miles from the entrance to the Min River and twelve miles below the City of Foochow (Fuzhou) in Southern China.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble