The original 4th verse runs:

The leaves that just are open now, they'll have to fade and fall,
They'll be reaping time and threshing time and ploughing time and all;
But we'll not see the harvest fields nor smell the fresh cut loam;
We'll be rolling gun'le under on the long road home.

I personally like this verse but felt that it wasn't easily picked up by listeners as they imagined a tall ship setting out to sea. However, it does provide a sense of the time it took, 3 months of more, to run from British Columbia round Cape Horn to England.

I did borrow the last line of the verse as more vivid than "Out beyond the harbour on the long road home?"

Every singer has to figure out what to do when adapting poems for singing. Some do not change a single word. I tend to rework things until I'm more satisified with the result.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble