And here’s to it that once again
We’ll trawl and seine and race again;
Here’s to us that’s living and to them that’s gone before;
And when to us the Lord says, ‘Come!’
We’ll bow our heads, ‘His will be done,’
And all together let us go beneath the ocean’s roar.“
I never again expect to hear a sea song sung as 227 Tom O’Donnell sang it then, his beard still wet with the spray and his eyes glowing like coal-fire. And the voice of him! He must have been heard in half of Gloucester that night. He made the table quiver. And when they all rose with glasses raised and sang the last lines again:
“And here’s to it that once again
We’ll trawl and seine and race again;
Here’s to us that’s living and to them that’s gone before;