| |
| THE INJIAN OCEAN sets an’ smiles | |
| So sof’, so bright, so bloomin’ blue; | |
| There aren’t a wave for miles an’ miles | |
| Excep’ the jiggle from the screw. | |
| The ship is swep’, the day is done, | 5 |
| The bugle’s gone for smoke and play; | |
| An’ black ag’in the settin’ sun | |
| The Lascar sings, “Hum deckty hai!” 1 | |
| |
| For to admire an’ for to see, | |
| For to be’old this world so wide— | 10 |
| It never done no good to me, | |
| But I can’t drop it if I tried! | |
| |
| I see the sergeants pitchin’ quoits, | |
| I ’ear the women laugh an’ talk, | |
| I spy upon the quarter-deck | 15 |
| The orficers an’ lydies walk. | |
| I thinks about the things that was, | |
| An’ leans an’ looks acrost the sea, | |
| Till, spite of all the crowded ship, | |
| There’s no one lef’ alive but me. | 20 |
| |
| The things that was which I ’ave seen, | |
| In barrick, camp, an’ action too, | |
| I tells them over by myself, | |
| An’ sometimes wonders if they’re true; | |
| For they was odd—most awful odd— | 25 |
| But all the same now they are o’er, | |
| There must be ’eaps o’ plenty such, | |
| An’ if I wait I’ll see some more. | |
| |
| Oh, I ’ave come upon the books, | |
| An’ frequent broke a barrick-rule, | 30 |
| An’ stood beside an’ watched myself | |
| Be’avin’ like a bloomin’ fool. | |
| I paid my price for findin’ out, | |
| Nor never grutched the price I paid, | |
| But sat in Clink without my boots, | 35 |
| Admirin’ ’ow the world was made. | |
| |
| Be’old a cloud upon the beam, | |
| An’ ’umped above the sea appears | |
| Old Aden, like a barrick-stove | |
| That no one’s lit for years an’ years! | 40 |
| I passed by that when I began, | |
| An’ I go ’ome the road I came, | |
| A time-expired soldier-man | |
| With six years’ service to ’is name. | |
| |
| My girl she said, “Oh, stay with me!” | 45 |
| My mother ’eld me to ’er breast. | |
| They’ve never written none, an’ so | |
| They must ’ave gone with all the rest— | |
| With all the rest which I ’ave seen | |
| An’ found an’ known an’ met along. | 50 |
| I cannot say the things I feel, | |
| And so I sing my evenin’ song: | |
| |
| For to admire an’ for to see, | |
| For to be’old this world so wide— | |
| It never done no good to me, | 55 |
| But I can’t drop it if I tried! | |
