Being the song of the Gentlemen and Mariners of the Golden Hind
"By the life of God it doth even take my wits from me to think on it; here is such controversy between the sailors and the gentlemen, and such stomaching between the gentlemen and the sailors, that it doth even make me mad to hear it. But, my masters, I must have it left, for I must have the gentleman to hawl and draw with the mariner and the mariner with gentleman. What! let us shew ourselves to be all of a company, and let us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow."
Francis Drake: Port St. Julian,
11 Aug. 1578.
1
OH, how did you learn where the New World lay,
The New World - the New World?'
Oh, how did you learn where the New World lay
In the gold and silver sea?
Why, our skipper he climbed a tall-topped tree
And he saw it fair and he saw it free
Then he prayed for leave to sail that sea,
So we sailed with Drake
To the New World
2
Oh, how was the road that you had to tread
To the New World - the New World?
Oh, how was the road that you had to tread
To the gold and silver sea?
Why, the road was long and mortal bad,
Till we thought that the seas were ravin' mad,
We'd ha' liked to ha' kept to the world we had,
But the skipper he led
To the New World.
3
Oh, how did you travel the road along
To the New World - the New World?
Oh, how did you travel the road along
To the gold and silver sea?
We were each for himself when we first set sail,
But as sure as we lived to tell the tale,
Except for Drake and a north-east gale,
We'd ha' never clapped eyes
On the New World.
4
And what did they teach you to help you find
The New World - the New World?
Oh, what did they teach you to help you find
The gold and silver sea?
What you never can learn till you sell your farm -
If the Ship counts first you can take no harm,
And a man mustn't think of his "own yard arm"
When he's winning his way
To a New World.
5
And what did you find when at last you came
To the New World - the New World?
Oh, what did you find when at last you came
To the gold and silver sea?
Oh, we found that the skipper had told us true,
And we thanked the Lord that our ship came through,
Though the World was the same - why, our hearts were New,
So it looked like a beautiful
New World!
["The St. Martin's Review."
There's a voice
... the breeze has spoken strangers, with a stirring tale to tell,
And a thousand eager voices flung the challenge out to sea:
"Come they hither in the old way, in the only way that's free?"
And the flying Breeze called softly: "In the old way . . ."
