He was like a guilty conscience, he was like a ghost unlaid,
He was like a debt of which you can't get rid,
Till the Powers that Be, despairing, in a fit of temper said,
"For the Lord's sake give him something"--and they did.

They commissioned him a trawler with a high and raking bow,
Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft,
With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row,
And a brace of little barkers fore and aft;
And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the North Sea sprays
And exceedingly extolled his lucky star
That had given his youth renewal in the evening of his days
(With the rank of Captain Dugout, R.N.R.).

He is jolly as a sandboy, he is happier than a king,
And his trawler is the darling of his heart
(With her cuddy like a cupboard where a kitten couldn't swing,
And a smell of fish that simply won't depart);
He has found upon occasion sundry targets for his guns;
He could tell you tales of mine and submarine;
Oh, the holes he's in and out of and the glorious risks he runs
Turn his son--who's in a Super-Dreadnought--green.

He is fit as any fiddle; he is hearty, hale and tanned;
He is proof against the coldest gales that blow;
He has never felt so lively since he got his first command
(Which is rather more than forty years ago);
And of all the joyful picnics of his wild and wandering youth--
Little dust-ups from Taku to Zanzibar--
There was none to match the picnic, he declares in sober sooth,