(After Henry Newbolt)

I T was eight bells in the forenoon and hammocks running sleek
(It's a fair sea flowing from the West),
When the little Commodore came a-sailing up the Creek
(Heave Ho! I think you'll know the rest),
Thunder in the halyards and horses leaping high,
Blake and Drake and Nelson are listenin' where they lie,
Four and twenty blackbirds a-bakin' in a pie,
And the Pegasus came waltzing from the West.

Now the little Commodore sat steady on his keel
(It's a fair sea flowing from the West),
A heart as stout as concrete reinforced with steel
(Heave Ho! I think you'll know the rest.)
Swinging are the scuppers, hark, the rudder snores,
Plugging at the Frenchmen, downing 'mdash by scores,
Porto Rico, Vera Cruz, and also the Azores,
And the Pegasus came waltzing from the West.

So three cheers more for the little Commodore
(It's a fair sea flowing from the West),
I tell you so again as I've told you so before
(Heigh Ho! I think you know the rest).
Aged is the Motherland, old but she is young
(Easy with the tackle there — don't release the bung),
And I sang a song like all the songs that I have ever sung
When the Pegasus came sailing from the West.