And I cannot get a skipper for to answer to my hail.

So as no one me engages,

Why, of course, my bit o’ wages

I’d saved up for a rainy day is bound to quickly go;

And my hopes, I own, is sinking,

For I somehow can’t help thinking

That I shan’t get the chance again to sing out “Yo, heave ho!”

Yes, the times is changed completely since I first sailed on the ocean,

For then a British ship, you see, was worked by British tars,

And every British skipper would have scoffed the very notion