“Loose, loose every sail to the breeze,
The course of the vessel improve,
I’ve done with the toil of the seas,
Ye sailors, I’m bound to my love.
“Tom, you beggar, is the bundle ready for your mother? We must drop the skiff, Jacob, at Battersea reach, and send the clothes on shore for the old woman to wash, or there’ll be no clean shirts for Sunday. Shove in your shirts, Jacob; the old woman won’t mind that. She used to wash for the mess. Clap on, both of you, and get another pull at those haulyards. That’ll do, my bantams.
“Hoist, hoist, every sail to the breeze,
Come, shipmates, and join in the song,
Let’s drink while the barge cuts the seas,
To the gale that may drive her along.
“Tom, where’s my pot of tea? Come, my boy, we must pipe to breakfast. Jacob, there’s a rope towing overboard. Now, Tom, hand me my tea, and I’ll steer her with one hand, drink with the other, and as for the legs, the less we say about them the better.
“No glory I covet, no riches I want,
Ambition is nothing to me.
But one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant—”
Tom’s treble chimed in, handing him the pot—
“For breakfast a good cup of tea.
“Silence, you sea-cook! how dare you shove in your penny whistle! How’s tide, Tom?”
“Three quarters ebb.”
“No, it a’n’t, you thief; how is it Jacob?”