ROLLING HOME
(Capstan Shanty)

Call all hands to man the capstan,
See the cable run down clear,
Heave away, and with a will, boys,
For old England we will steer!

Rolling home, rolling home,
Rolling home across the sea,
Rolling home to merrie England
Rolling home, dear land, to thee!

Up aloft amidst the rigging,
Sings the loud exulting gale,
Straining every spar and backstay,
Every stitch in every sail.

Rolling home, rolling home,
Rolling home across the sea,
Rolling home to merrie England
Rolling home, dear land, to thee!

Many thousand miles behind us,
Many thousand miles before,
Ancient ocean heaves to waft us
To the well-remembered shore.

Rolling home, rolling home,
Rolling home across the sea,
Rolling home to merrie England
Rolling home, dear land, to thee!

Notes by CFS, p. 79:

I suppose some people would say that "Rolling Home" is not a shanty at all, but a popular song converted into a shanty. But it was well-known right up to the end of the windjammer period, and so high a favourite with every shellback –"the best of the blooming lot," I have heard many an old sailorman say of it, with that sentimental affection usually reserved for the "homeward bound" shanty – that no collection would be complete which did not include it. It has, moreover, rather a special interest because it affords an excellent example of the shanty in the making, and the process of its development from the song upon which it was founded…The version I give is, I think, that known to most sailormen. It was sung to me by a man who was in sail right up to the finish of the windjammer. His last ship was the "William Mitchell," one of the half-dozen survivors of Britain's age of sail.