The Irish poet and editor William Allingham is best known today for his short poem "The Fairies," beginning,

             Up the airy mountain,
                Down the rushy glen,
             We daren't go a-hunting,
                For fear of little men.

Less familiar is this lyric from "Songs, Ballads and Stories" (London: George Bell, 1877), p. 209:

                     HOMEWARD BOUND
            
             Head the ship for England !
                Shake out every sail !
             Blithe leap the billows,
                Merry sings the gale.
             Captain, work the reck'ning ;
                How many knots a day ?--
             Round the world and home again,
                That's the sailor's way !

             We've traded with the Yankees,
                Brazilians, and Chinese ;
             We've laugh'd with dusky beauties
                In shade of tall palm trees ;
             Across the Line and Gulf-stream--
                Round by Table Bay--
             Everywhere and home again,
                That's the sailor's way !

             Nightly stands the North Star
                Higher on our bow ;
             Straight we run for England ;
                Our thoughts are in it now.
             Jolly time with friends ashore,
                When we've drawn our pay !--
             All about and home again,
                That's the sailor's way !

             Tom will to his parents,
                Jack will to his dear,
             Joe to wife and children,
                Bob to pipes and beer ;
             Dicky to the dancing-room,
                To hear the fiddles play ;--
             Round the world and home again,
                That's the sailor's way !

             Round the world and home again,
                That's the sailor's way !

    Traditional versions of "The Sailor's Way" appear in Doerflinger's "Shantymen and Shantyboys" (1951) and, most notably, in Stan Hugill's "Shanties and Sailor's Songs" (1969). There's an old Mudcat thread as well (search for "sailor's way"). It includes an even more modern rewrite from New Zealand.

    The origin of Hugill's tune remains unknown, but to me it sounds like a circa 1900 product: waltzy, with accidentals.

    There's a slim chance that Allingham, a prolific writer, adapted his poem from an older song. After all, an eighteenth-century version of the Jacobite song "Charlie is My Darling" includes the verse,

                It's up yon heathery mountain,
                And doon yon scroggy glen,
                We daurna gang a-milkin'
                For Charlie and his men!

      But expanding a folk verse about Prince Charlie into a poem about the menacing "little men" is not quite a theft. So, at least for now, William Allingham (1824-1889) deserves all credit for writing the original lyrics of the folksong, "The Sailor's Way."