Seven men from all the world back to Docks again, |
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain. |
Give the girls another drink ‘fore we sign away - |
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay! |
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We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails; |
We put back to Sunderland ’cause our cargo shifted; |
We put our from Sunderland - met the winter gales - |
Seven days and seven nights to The Start we drifted. |
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Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow, |
All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below, |
Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray - |
Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay! |
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One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by; |
Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo’c’sle short; |
Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly; |
Left The Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port. |
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Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul; |
Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll; |
Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray - |
So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay! |
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Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she’d break; |
Wondered every time she raced if she’d stand the shock; |
Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her stake; |
’ud keep His thumb on the plummer-block! |
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Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal; |
Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul; |
’Last we prayed she’d buck herself into Judgment Day - |
Hi! we cursed the Bolivar knocking round the Bay! |
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Up and down and back we went, never time for breath; |
Then the money paid at Lloyds’ caught her by the keel, |
And the stars ran round and round dancin’ at our death! |
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Aching for an hour’s sleep, dozing off between: |
’Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green; |
’Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play - |
That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay! |
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Once we saw between the squalls, lyin’ head to swell - |
Mad with work and weariness, wishin’ they was we - |
’s lights go by like a grand hotel; |
’Cheered her from the Bolivar swampin’ in the sea. |
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Then a greybeard cleared us out, then the skipper laughed; |
«Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell - rig the winches aft! |
«Yoke the kicking rudder-head - get her under way!» |
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Just a pack o’ rotten plates puttied up with tar, |
In we came, an’ time enough, ’cross Bilbao Bar. |
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Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we |
Euchred God Almighty’s storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea! |
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Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain: |
Seven men from out of Hell. Ain't the owners gay, |
'Cause we took the Bolivar safe across the Bay? |