n-string,
And soon she would want me to help with the hay;
So I bided her time, then I flitted away
On a night of delight in the following spring,
With a pair of stout shoon
And a seafaring tune
And a bundle and stick in the light of the moon,
Down the long road
To Portsmouth I strode,
To fight like a sailor for country and king.

CHORUS.--_To fight like a sailor for country and king._

And now that my feet are turned homeward again
My heart is still crying Ahoy! Ahoy!
And my thoughts are still out on the Spanish main
A-chasing the frigates of France and Spain,
For at heart an old sailor is always a boy;
And his nose will still itch
For the powder and pitch
Till the days when he can't tell t'other from which,
Nor a grin o' the guns from a glint o' the sea,
Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me.

CHORUS.--_Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me._

Ay! Now that I'm old I'm as bold as the best,
And the life of a sailor is all my joy;
Though I've swapped my leg
For a wooden peg
And my head is as bald as a new-laid egg,
The smell of the sea
Is like victuals to me,
And I think in the grave I'll be crying Ahoy!
For, though my old carcass is ready to rest,
At heart an old sailor is always a boy.

CHORUS.--_At heart an old sailor is always a boy._

THE FISHER-GIRL

Where the old grey churchyard slopes to the sea,
On the sunny side of a mossed headstone;
Watching the wild white butterflies pass
Through the fairy forests of grass,
Two little children with brown legs bare
Were merrily, merrily
Weaving a wonderful daisy-chain,
And chanting the rhyme that was graven there
Over and over and over again;
While the warm wind came and played with their hair
And laughed and was gone
Out, far out to the foam-flowered lea
Like an ocean-wandering memory.

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three,
Dan Trevennick was lost at sea;
And, buried here at her husband's side
Lies the body of Joan, his bride,
Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

This was the rhyme that was graven there,
And the children chanted it quietly;
As the warm wind came and