The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #51635   Message #1293500
Posted By: Lighter
09-Oct-04 - 09:40 PM
Thread Name: DTStudy: Rolling Home to Dear Old England
Subject: RE: DTStudy: ROLLING HOME to Dear Old England
Not much here that's new except this is how I learned it from overexposure to sea literature in youth:

Call all hand to man the capstan!
See the cable flaked down clear!
Heave away, and with a will, boys,
As homeward we will steer!
Breast the bars and heave away, boys,
Soon the anchor we will trip,
And across the Southern Ocean
We will steer our gallant ship!

      Rolling home, rolling home,
      Rolling home, across the sea!
      Rolling home to New York City,
      Rolling home, sweet town, to thee!

Fare you well, Australia's daughters,
We must bid you now adieu!
We'll ne'er forget the happy hours
That we've spent along with you!
Many thousand miles behind us,
Many thousand miles before,
Ancient ocean heaves to waft us,
To that well remembered shore.

High aloft, amidst the riggin',
Shouts the wild, exulting gale,
Straining every spar and backstay,
Every stitch in every sail.
'Round Cape Horn on a winter's morning,
All amidst the ice and snow,
You can hear the first mate callign,
"Sheet her home, boys! Let her go!"

And the waves we've cleft behind us
Seem to whisper as they go,
"Farewell, Jack! Kind hearts await you
In the land to which you go."
So we'll sing in jovial chorus
In the watches of the night,
Till we raise old Batt'ry Point, boys,
When the gray dawn brings the light.